My poem was selected by the American Pain Foundation

From: Tamara Sloan Anderson

To: 'Tamara Sloan Anderson, MSW'

Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 1:40 PM

Subject: Pain and Creativity Exhibit

Dear Pain and Creativity Artist,

Thank you for submitting your artwork to the American Pain Foundation and HealthCentral Network Pain and Creativity Exhibit. We are delighted to inform you that your art submission was selected to be honored and prominently featured with the American Pain Foundation and our project partner, the HealthCentral Network. Congratulations!

We will be highlighting your work through several mediums to help share and illuminate the impact of pain on self and family. We may contact you in the future for further information and insight into your work to help us convey your message as we develop this project.

Thank you so very much for sharing your voice, thoughts, and images with us. Art is a wonderful way to express your experience and often it carries more power than all the statistics and written words presented. We will be putting forth your artistic offering in our continued efforts to help raise awareness for people with pain and fight for improved pain care and understanding.

All the best, and thank you again.

Sincerely,

The American Pain Foundation Pain and Creativity Team

Dewakening, a poem by me

Dewakening

By Rebecca Miller, fibromyalgia patient since 1994

I lie upon the beach of Sleep,

Not yet a creature of the Day.

My bones throb in the wake of Night,

My mind in the break of Day.

Sleep, like the sea, has tossed me to and fro,

While I, innocently, slept.

Safely on the sand I plan,

All that I’ll do, or be, or will,

While the undertow of my mind pulls hard,

Reminding me I burn, I ache,

"Be still".

I did not come gentle from that good Night.

Sleep ripped, and tore, and mauled.

My day is plagued by night’s effects.

And yet I fight, to Day I’m called.

"So, sigh no more, lady, sigh no more",

Sleep is deceiver, ever.

"One foot on sea, and one on shore,

To one thing constant, never."

So sigh not so, but let it go,

And be you fun and funny,

Converting all your sounds of woe,

And find Day’s beaches sunny.

Still, I lie upon the break of Day,

Still yet a creature of the Night.

My bones throb in the breath of Day,

Mind numb in the crush of Night.