Pain is worst when it shouldn’t be here
When it arrives on days decked with garland
When faces around glow with cheer and
Carols, well wishes all you hear.
Pain is most debilitating
When it’s a foreign thing
When it invades off limits relationships
My imagined world on its axis tips.
Wide swings pain with a blackened swath
Bathes home, and dreams and past.
When it colors over prisms of love
Reflections of joy, dreams of comfort.
Pain stings most when it has been lurking in shadows
When it strikes at everything that should be its antibody.
When hurt overcomes last bastions of resolve
And slings my soul upon the floor.
Pain hurts most when it’s slow.
A seeping chill from inside out
Damaging tender tissue, so touch’s sensation
Is blunted for the rest of time.
And sometimes there is nowhere to turn.
Sometimes, it leaks under walls and doors of protection.
Sometimes it invades safe haven and sanctuary.
Sometimes pain is unavoidable, healing a mirage,
And hope disguised.
And sometimes, courage musters its strength only
Through sharing pain
With a two-dimensional page
Drinking in the ink, swallowing, memorializing pain.
