When I was 18 I fractured my pinky
riding my Huffy bike from my dorm to my vet tech class
I sat there in class for the next two hours
in horrified silence
not wanting to leave
I couldn't miss class
My hand turned from a beige to a lovely shade of indigo
like I had dipped the right side of my right hand in a vat of ink

That pain was nothing

When I was 20 I unceremoniously jumped from a mustang named Spirit
Fracturing my leg, the only thing keeping it attached was the muscle, tendons, and skin
But even that had been broken by a white bone
I cried and cried

That pain was nothing

See for a fractured finger or leg
You receive attention, and help
doctors crowd around you and inject you with morphin
and prescribe hydrocodine
to numb the pain
so that you can be put together again and heal
eventually forgetting why you cried in the first place

But what about a broken heart?
No one comes
and you are the only who feels that it would have been better had you been shot, because then you would know why you feel this way
there would be evidence of your pain
and a reminder that you used to be whole
not just a shade of who you once were
people wouldn't tell you to get over it
that you just need to think about something else

This pain is everything

Why do I feel like touching the stars in the sky?
Feel like going everywhere of galaxy beyond eye.
Am I floating in absolute zero temperature?
Whom to touch? Whom to love? Extreme rapture.

O east wind! Swing me again and again,
Open, open all sources of happy fountain.
O boy! Let your heart be palanqin,
Let me forget past with benumbing morphin.

O moon! Why am I like you?
Holding light of Love to make the earth new.
Come boy, I am calling you eagerly,
I'll make wonder city drying sea magically.

Am I cloud? Rain drops when smiles burst out,
This lonely isle produces luscious green sprout.
This sky changes color every moment, never ending,
Me, the water fairy smiles despite pain, never bending.

I'm flossing to save lives
Keeping myself
From the dentist, and the amalgam of codeine and cogent care, morphin' in my seat