A Litany for Pain.

Is fear the thing that becomes the mind-killer?

Or is it Pain?

For whose little death truly brings total annihilation?

Pain becomes that pinpoint focus, 

And that mad abandon in search of some relief

It becomes everything and nothing and the space in-between.

I am focused on only breathing, and beating my wings against this flood.

Oh god, how it floods.

Pain is brilliant, and dwelling and insistent and enveloping

It is controlling and encompassing and devouring.

I will open my arms to Pain.  I will watch its path as it burns

Every part of me I am not sure of.

It reduces the best and the worst and the uncertainties 

Down to only what matters most:

Love.

Hope.

I will open my soul to Pain as it washes me clean of any trappings of desire.

Anything I wanted that doesn't serve me, 

Anything I am that isn't sure or whole or perfect gets burned down to its core.

"And where Pain has gone, there will be nothing."

Only Love will remain.

Go home.

Insidious, disastrous.

Catastophrous, even.

Brilliant and humbling, I grasp at straws, at my own breath

Gasping for some kind of relief.

It's not that the pain is sharp or really even all that intense

It is the relentlessness that wears me down.

It's a long-flowing stream of water that wears away rock.

It's a ceaseless wind drifting the sand ever so smoothly.

Slowly it chips away at my soul, at my body, at my life.

I am discouraged.  I am losing hope in a way I never have before.

Aging faster than I ever dreamed.

I am learning to lean hard.  Lay down and lean in.  

Listen to my body when it says no.

Maybe it's all a farce, you see.  My body screaming the quiet part out loud...

Go home.