If pain was a friend instead of a burden
– if I could make peace with the unwelcome
– if perhaps I could see her as a teacher,

not in a lecture theatre (distant and with sharp echoes),
but in a private tutorial with soft furnishings
and perhaps a vase of flowers.

– If her lessons came with handouts,
exploring, with pictures, the reason for the searing,
the overwhelming

– but no,
my pain is that annoying parent on a pointless trek,
refusing to stay silent,
incessant in her insistence
that we can’t part ways.