The pain takes over.  Moves into my body like a squatter in a derelict
house.  Foreign, unwanted, no matter what I do I can never fully evit
it.  Sometimes it suffuses my body totally, wafting through me like
smoke, leaving no part of me untouched.  At other times it attacks
certain parts of me one at a time, tricking me into becoming relaxed
and unwary, and then, when I'm not paying attention it pounces,
snarling and growling with delight at my mistake.  Grabbing the back
of my leg, or my hands and fingers, in its teeth.  It clamps down
with the power of a thousand armies, and refuses to let go.
The world around me falls away, and I am locked in an age old battle
of wills.  A battle I get sick of fighting so often, but I know I can
never afford to lose.  Sometimes I want to let the pain win, take
over.  Wave the white flag, you win, I give up I've had it.
And I'd leave.  But it is part of me, knitted into me, the leit motif
of my life.  It defines the edges of my life, sets up an uncrossable
barrier.  I carry it with me where ever I go, or more to the point, it
carries me, sometimes gently, other times not so gently.