I woke this morning with sharp pains in my legs.

The clock by our bed read 3:30AM. For a moment, I wondered what had woken me. Then I felt it; that hot, jabbing pain that crawled up my legs like vines.

I knew spasms were coming and tried to prepare myself, but they always grab hold of me no matter how hard I try to get ready, no matter how hard I mentally prepare myself.

I lay there, letting the spasms grab hold of my legs. It’s a hard feeling to describe. It’s almost as if someone has reached inside and stretched every muscle in my legs at once, as if I had been walking a thousands of miles and the pain had only now set in.

Or maybe it’s as if someone has twisted my legs quickly back and forth.

The pain, that hot flash, is the same every time. Each time I hope that the pain will ease, that it won’t be as bad as it was the last time.

Each time I am disappointed.

The pain is instantanious. I feel the spasm coming and then it is there, like an unwanted lover.

Like a parasite.

I breathe, breathe, breathe, counting until I get to twenty, twenty five, thirty. I never know how long the spasm will last. Lately, they have been lasting longer and longer, as if they do not want to leave me.

The pain of the quick spasms remains with me today. I can feel it in my legs and joints, my calf and thigh muscles.

And I wait for the next one to come upon me.