This week I've learned the difference
between "do you feel sick?" and "where does it hurt?"
Ultimately, all pain is in the head
You give enough drugs, or you cut up all the nerves
And I start wondering:
Is it true that pain is what makes us feel alive?
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psychosomatic, repressed rage
stress headaches, stress ulcers
the line about pain and gain
is all bullshit
it means that something is wrong
the red alert
the warning light
check engine, service required
And I've been running on fumes for years now
maybe only deluding myself that I'm actually going anywhere
you realize when you get in the car,
it's the same trip day-in, day-out
30,000 miles a year to exactly nowhere
and the word "progress" just makes me laugh with derision
straight lines always run crooked, turn into circles
No matter how far I sail
I won't come to the edge of the world
There is no end to any of this
Even crazy people know that the world is round
And that you're doomed to spin and spin and spin
And this space that I'm in is so past hopeless
That I've forgotten what that means
Nerves burnt out
and yet there is this phantom feeling
these weird sensation
even though I know that what used to be there is gone
And this space tham I'm in is so past lonely
That I'm afraid to be around other people
I haven't answered the phone in weeks
I haven't opened my mail in months
And still, and still, no matter how hard I try
I still can't wish the world away.
And maybe I'll never beat this
As far as I run, or if I sit still
In the end entropy always wins
II
I held the child that would never have been mine in my arms
watched her smile and gaze at the world in wonder
and remember why it was that I thought I had fallen in love
To fall in love: I don't really know the difference
between this, and the panic of being alone forever
My soul was anesthesized
and then they forgot to wake me up
it takes about 8 minutes to permanently damage the soul
and Death all around me
and despite this drear nothingness
of days passing by with no change of scenery
I am afraid to die
would rather wallow in grief than lie still
and sleep, free of this pain (for lack of a better word)
(this dull, aching roar, this bleak vacuum imploding my heart)
I am not ready to face Her and her merciless scythe
to gaze at all those whom I loved
watch them still and forever silent
I am not ready
but She will not ask anyway
III
If I could only map out all this darkness
and understand the tortured inner workings of my soul
But entire cities disappear as I draw the lines and write the names
oceans dry up into deserts
and north becomes south
If I can't even understand myself
How do I dare to understand another?
How do I mend the break within myself,
Much less bridge the gap with the rest of the world?
Epilogue
I do not ask for pity, mostly because I would not know what to do with it, and it would hurt me worse to know that a gift is being offered that I must refuse. I have no idea what I'm looking for. I only know that I've lost something, which I cannot name nor describe.
And maybe I'll never find it, but I wish I didn't have to keep groping pointlessly in the dark.
But like they say, "Humihinga pa, Dum spira, spero" and there's always tomorrow