"Bones"

​An amazing spoken word piece To raise awareness for ME/CFS

By Jasmine Sanchez-ZIller

A note from the poet:

Please share this video if you have or know someone with M.E., Lyme, or neuro-immune illness OR if it just makes you feel something :)
“Bones” began with a poem I wrote.
I felt, as many others with M.E. do, that the word fatigue did not begin to describe what I was going through. You know that feeling when you have been up all night.. had a brutal day at work.. you get home… you’re wiped, and “fatigued”?? 

Well, that’s not what it feels like.

When there is no word in english or medical vocabulary to describe the primary reason you cannot leave your house, or even your bed… it gets frustrating.

To my surprise, I found that with poetry I was much more able to capture what I wanted to say, and over the course of my illness I have used this poem as one of my tools to help those around me better understand what it feels like to have M.E.

I decided to create this video/soundscape as a way of providing a glimpse into what it is like to live with this kind of bone-crushing exhaustion. I hope that this video speaks to you in some way. Either you now know a tiny bit more about the illness, or if you yourself are also sick that this resonates with you, and provides you with a tool to help explain what you are going through to those in your life. :) 
​

Lyrics for "Bones"
Bones on top of bones
heavy cold stone bones
heaped in a pile

Draped in muscle
limp languid motionless muscle
ravenous for revival

Brain engulfed in murky liquid
sludge blood clogging up veins
dead tissue floating
marrow leaching pain

Limbs dense and swollen
stuffed with tar and grimy sand
paralyzed with exhaustion
unmoved by command

Organs wheezing, gasping for air 
suffocating with gravity
oxygen deprived
system decaying rapidly

Flesh sheathed in sunken skin
a barren wasteland
forgotten and forsaken

Bones on top of bones
betrayed neglected withered bones
heaving in a pile.