Life is pain.
That’s what they say.
Pain—
physical, emotional, mental—
it touches everyone.
So mine is not unique,
I would say.
Pain is life.
Life is pain.

But endless pain—
that is a different animal.
It never stops.
It slinks beside you,
sleeps in your bones,
a feral thing
slithering through your soul,
feeding on your light.

It steals.
Dreams.
Desires.
Hope.
You begin to speak
of the Time Before Pain
like a lost country—
a utopia
you once called home.

Now the present is war.
Every day a siege,
every hour
a whisper of resistance:
beat it
conquer it
survive it.

This pain lives off you.
It eats your basics,
hollows your core.
You stop wanting love.
You stop wanting wealth.
You want one thing only:
the cessation of pain.

And the future?
A fog, a flicker—
maybe there,
a life beyond this.
But now—
now, pain fills you,
poisoning your soul
against the fragile thread of hope.

It fills you
with anger,
with emptiness,
with a raw and aching need—
the need
for someone
to see you.

To see beyond
the red, raging storm,
past the mask,
into the trembling self
still curled
in the heart of it all—
and simply
see
you.

I see the world horizontally,
Soft sheets all stuffy
With potential hardly realised.
My eyes, heavy and unhappy,
Are blinded by the muted sunshine
Mocking me through the blinds.
The hum of life,
Doing fine just outside the window,
I feel its energy,
Almost laugh at its impossibility.

Because I bear the world brutally,
Confined and coffin-ed
In an ache that leaves no stain.
Lady Macbeth,
My crime is wept on evidence of
unliving,
Those shrines of *******
Laid to rest around the head
Of this tomb effigy,
Chronically enshrined in invisible agony
While the world just carries on.

you can't see him but he is always here

he spoke when I was home

he yelled at me when I was driving

he sang to me when I was asleep

he made me stay in bed day in and day out so he can hold me

I told him to leave but he held me so tight that I could not breathe

I can’t brush my hair
for it ignites, like a fire
across my soft scalp.

Sometimes,  
I feel like, I’m drowning.  
This feeling–  
a never-ending rush,  
of water, that cascades
throughout
my body,
my veins,
leaving me submerged
from the inside.  
This feeling–  
a longing for the mundane
when I could wake
to the sound of a 6:00am bell
and not,
have it be answered
by a throb
from within my skull.  
Today,  
my mind,  
sags, like telephone wires
swaying tirelessly  
in summer heat.
My bones,  
ache.  
These feelings–  
a second self  
carried
through this tired will
of conduct, I call mine
much like the nails
on my fingers  
and the hair,  
upon my scalp.