The worst kind of pain

is not what you experience head-on,

but what scrapes at you, indirect

hits aimed for someone else.

An arrow may hit a bullseye

after barely missing a tree.

The arrow is sadness.

It hits one person, then those connected

feel the sting. Its target,

was it the tree or the bullseye?

The tree, barely hit,

was the target. The bullseye

the main sufferer, for it can’t take

seeing friends weak.

It absorbs its own shock,

pain inflicted upon herself,

the universe srtiking down on her.

It cracks under suffering from

the people who mean the most,

who mean more to her than

her own self.

Chop her down, carve her out,

paint a single dot on her heart,

and hang her up on another tree.

She feels nothing until she’*****

By the pain meant for the tree

Behind her.