Stem

noun  

• The main body or stalk of a plant or shrub, typically rising above ground but occasionally subterranean.
• The stalk supporting a fruit, flower, or leaf, and attaching it to a larger branch, twig, or stalk.
• A long, thin supportive or main section of something
• The slender part of a wine glass between the base and the bowl
• The tube of a tobacco pipe
• A rod or cylinder in a mechanism, for example the sliding shaft of a bolt or the winding pin of a watch
• A vertical stroke in a letter or musical note.
• Grammar The root or main part of a word, to which inflections or formative elements are added.
• • archaic or • literary The main line of descent of a family or nation
• The main upright timber or metal piece at the bow of a ship, to which the ship’s sides are joined at the front end
• US • informal A pipe used for smoking crack or opium.

verb (stems, stemming, stemmed)

• [no object] (stem from) Originate in or be caused by
• [with object] Remove the stems from (fruit or tobacco leaves)
• [with object] (Of a boat) make headway against (the tide or current)
• [with object] Stop or restrict (the flow of something)
• Stop the spread or development of (something undesirable)
• [no object] Skiing Slide the tail of one ski or both skis outwards in order to turn or slow down

abbreviation

• Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (as an educational category)

Origin

Old English stemn, stefn, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch stam and German Stamm. sense 4 of the noun is related to Dutch steven, German Steven
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/stem?q=stem#STEM

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It was already today when she went to bed and just short of three hours later when she woke, unable to move her legs, with tears falling down her face. Muscles curved her left leg forward with such force that it pushed her blanket off the bed. She pushed at her left leg, first at her thigh and then at her calf, ankle, foot, and toes, in order to ease the awkward, wrong-direction stretch. Her right leg curved over her left. Once she was able to swing her legs off the side of the bed and sit up, she sat for small blocks of time, stretching and pulling and rubbing her legs, before trying to lay down again hoping the muscles would cooperate. Each time, they would not. The dog wearily shifted around her tossing. After a dozen or so attempts, the spasms stopped and she was able to lay back down, though only on her back-- a position she didn't trust. 

She wanted to cry-- felt like she could-- but also feared someone seeing her cry. She worried someone had seen the tears on her face when she woke. There was no one there, she knew, but still she feared being seen. She had no idea what she wanted to cry about...no idea from what the push of emotion stemmed. The pain with which she woke, her body controlled by something else, sufficiently distracted her from pursuing understanding. But now, as she stared at the crack in the ceiling stretching from one end of the room to the other, she wondered what crying was meant to be. 

Does crying ask for attention or is it expression alone? 
Is it the way the body flushes out toxins or the way it reminds us how like the ocean we are? 
Is it a display of weakness-- an invitation on which stronger people prey, creating more crying, to prey even more and continue the cycle without end? 

One of the reasons she'd survived, she knew, was her intense curiosity to understand-- to understand herself, to understand others, to get a handle on dates and details and circumstances. Smells and colors and light and textures were experienced in extreme ways--often physically and emotionally painful ways--but they were necessary and so she kept quiet and dealt. She worked tirelessly at piecing together everything--even the smallest things-- in a way that she could digest or classify or do something for which a word had not yet been coined. It was her curiosity to understand WHY-- like a perpetual question from a toddler to a tired parent: 

 "But WHYYYYY!" 
--short, nonsensical reply-- 
"But WHYYYYYYYYYY!" 
-- shorter, nonsensical reply-- 
"But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"
--non-answer answer "BECAUSE"--   

Because suspended why. Being yelled at, reprimanded, made to feel as though she was a toddler, suspended why. And that BECAUSE came from both the outside and from within herself. 

She fell asleep on her back, in time, as she stared at the crack in the ceiling, thought on endless, circular questions, and concentrated on the rhythm of the dog's expanding rib cage against the outside of her legs. 

The alarm woke her soon after. She was able to move her legs, though they were sore. Her stomach, shoulders, wrists and lower arms ached as if she'd been in a fight during her final hour of sleep. Light and sound hurt and when she rested her hands on her thighs before she stood to head to the bathroom, she startled at her own touch and felt nausea rise, nausea which grew exponentially when she wiped to find she was sticky. Immediately, she got in the shower and started to cry. 

But WHYYYYY!
--no answer-- 
But WHYYYYYYYYYY!
-- no answer-- 
But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
--only-answer, answer "YOU--IT'S YOU--FOREVER WORTHLESS"   

She stopped WHY and stopped crying and started to wash her hair, smelling the scent of peppermint trailing down the sides of her face. She stood under the hot water and scrubbed at herself, trying to exfoliate more than just the top layer of skin. 

My top layer isn't the only one dead and disgusting--disgusting reaches far beneath...

She lifted her stomach and her breasts and other rolls of fat out of the way of the scrubbing before scrubbing them as well. She no longer felt the water, the temperature or the sound. She no longer felt the scrubbing or smelled the peppermint. Focussed, the bad night of sleep and all of the bad nights from which this one stemmed, disappeared. 

She, however, still needed to go to work.

She stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, made effort not to see herself in the mirror. She brushed her hair back, pushing the excess water in the strands to the ends, before squeezing it out from the twisted bunch and into the tub. Dropping the brush into the sink, switching the light off, and heading into the bedroom, she prepared to dress.

A collection of clothes, pulled from the dresser, the closet, and the laundry basket were left piled at the edge of the bed. She dropped the towel, simultaneously picking up her underwear, balancing on her sore left leg as she lifted her right leg through the opening. She decided to grab her towel and take it back into the bathroom, hanging it to dry, and when she did she saw herself in the mirror, exposed chest, remaining tear stains, and for the first time since she'd been five, a five year old.

And she wondered...

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY...

...before the dizzy set in, she lost balance on her sore legs, and she fell, hitting her head off of the tub...