Adela T. – Brambles

Brambles

Red fruit, green leaves, thorns underneath

A smiling face, twinkling eyes, great tenacity between hidden clenched teeth

Sweet juice, bursting through delicate, tart skin

Small things, I know. But how great, how startlingly tangible they seem

Fruit seems sweeter

When for them, you’ve had to suffer

Life seems fuller

Alternating between piercing darkness, shinning appreciation

The hidden thorns, the sweet fruit just barely within reach

The pain, the scars that lay unseen below,

You try not to let that show, you try to be discreet

Rolling pastures, framed with climbing vines

Of brambles, heavy with serrated foliage,

Red and black fruit, how pretty in the sun they shine

Chores that others don’t enjoy

Are a privilege and to them, yourself you deploy

Glee! As juice dribbles down your chin

Down your arms, along the scratch grooves, all the way past your shins

Glee! As you push against all your limits

Not comparing to others, doing as much, or more as you see fit

Thorns digging into soft flesh

Though the thorns, again and again

Ignoring whatever pain

For the sweet reward, against the brambles your limbs gladly thresh

Artist: Adela T.

Title of Piece: Brambles

About the Artist: There has been a great deal of trauma in the earlier years of my life, continuing on to my early adulthood. While not a medical condition and while that cannot be compared to the daily, constant suffering of chronic pain victims, emotional and psychological pain can hurt just as much as physical pain.

Also, like chronic pain, it’s not something that shows on the outside, not something that can be ‘cured’ easily. Emotional distress, not a passing condition, proven to be “more deeply felt and longer lasting than that caused by physical injuries”, coming back “over and over again” (The Press Trust of India Ltd, 2008). Another similarity, in my opinion, with chronic pain.

Dealing with issues alone, has been a rewarding and strange journey. All of it has made me more interested in people, so people in a crowd to me, each have an individual face and life history. They never seem to be the faceless mass/crowd (or similar descriptions in novels). It’s made me want to try harder for the experiences and accomplishments that I really want to have in life. I’ve shared my full story no more than just once, with someone I no longer have contact with. I’ve got fewer friends than fingers, but all of them are dear to me, just like my fingers and hopefully, (same goes for my fingers) I hope I’ll never lose them.