The pill is a triangle, and the dust of it sticks to my throat despite the water. It dissolves and floats into my brain like a storm cloud. The targeted migraine pulls together every ounce of pain that it was planning to ration out over the next few days to rally against the medicine. They fight to the death while I get ready for work, suppressing the urge to vomit. The back of my head splits wide open, and a pair of hands with long, sharp claws rip around furiously as if there were buried treasure at the center of my brain.

Nothing found there, the pain explodes angrily out the other side, through my forehead. I apply mascara to my eyelashes while the gaping exit wound between them drips hot tar. Half an hour passes, and the pain continues to swirl around my head. I am on the train with my head down, preparing my eyeballs for a day of being target practice for invisible knives, when suddenly, like a demon being sucked suddenly back down to hell, the migraine is gone.

For the rest of the day, I remain in the cloud of the pill. Everything is hazy, robotic and post traumatic, waiting for the migraine to resurface. Nobody wins, really. I go about my day like a functioning crash test dummy, and the migraine licks its wounds and plans the next attack.

Luciana, 29