Just like that,
I felt a sprinkle of pain,
You know the kind that gnaws and grows,
And nibbles your insides.
What started it, I wonder,
A buried thought,
a deserted experience,
Befallen, buried, squashed,
Run asunder, but still alive.
It pushes through the barriers to say,
Hey you! Yes you!
I exist,
Don’t think your looking away,
Will stop me coming back, some day.
Huh! I beat it hollow,
and there it’s slimy self crept back,
I had learnt not to feed it as it would grow,
I keep it on such a strict spartan diet,
My oh My! Look how bulbous it looks!
Hmmmm! Pain, were you feeding inside of me merrily while I was asleep,
Chewing my tissues, chomp chomp, burp,
Deep so very deep,
I feel I am missing a bone or two,
you gluttonous pain,
I am sure you’ve gobbled up many cells too.
Dark, gray, silent, doom,
Am I on for lifelong gloom,
Aah! Hrmph! Boo hooo!
What do I do,
So many around me,
Who do I reach out to?
Oh I do reach out,
And they say,
You? Couldn’t be,
You’re so strong,
It doesn’t fit you well, this pain you see!
I laugh, Is this pain
A size smaller for me,
Am I self indulgent,
In saying it hurts.
I start looking around,
And see many like me,
Laughter hiding the pain,
Cloaked well, their touch warm,
The tremble reaching out in vain.
It’s tough, this despair,
Sometimes with valid cause,
Many times so much accumulated,
Unaddressed, unmet, covered with gauze.
It rears it’s ugly head
For many
Eating their insides,
It’s canine jaws,
Sharp and unrelenting.
I still don’t have an answer,
Who does really,
Expectations, recriminations, justifications, validations, manipulations, mechanisations,
Eat us up a bit more.
We sleep off some days
hoping to sleep away to nothingness.
And then we arise to the morn,
The sun filtering through, casting its warmth,
A bird in the distance chirping away,
Pain still there but so are my fingers glowing like starlight along the Milky Way,
My limbs stretch and I purr away,
The clocks tick tock,
Reminds me of a chance,
A new beginning,
A fresh start,
A fresh me,
A wounded but mighty heart!
Facing my pain instead of sublimating it,
Nursing it tenderly instead of ill treating it,
I know you’ll ease out, heal out,
And I will be better each day,
Because this life, this beautiful life,
Is worth living each moment, every day.
When I face you, I shall share you,
Tell your story to those I want to,
And suddenly, you will feel acknowledged and dance way into the oblivion because you’ve been sung to, heard, cuddled and celebrated.
Till then, I trudge along...
This is an ode to so many of us who carry burdens of hurt, unresolved pain, and stories to self which need to be heard. May you seek and find those willing to listen and hold your hand, sometimes that’s all it takes, sometimes you need more, but seek you must. I send you my love and hugs and Godspeed to find your pain and acknowledge it, only then healing starts.
