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If you’re unfortunate enough to know pain the way I’ve gotten to know pain

You’ll understand what I mean when I say

Pain does more than just…hurt.

It does that, for sure, but don’t underestimate how much pain can do to a person.

When pain strikes back over and over again and it rips up your ambitions to shreds and lays them down to make a little nest for itself in your soul

When, without even ringing the doorbell, pain walks right into your house, kicks its feet up on your furniture, and starts to get comfortable calling you its servant

Pain drains you

Pain changes you

Pain takes the lights out of your eyes and your smile and the tips of your fingers

You stop moving your hands when you talk

You stop moving your body when you dance

You become different

The pain scoops up your insides and throws them out onto the porch so you feel hollow inside

And before I go on, let me make it clear that I’m not talking about some sappy, emotional pain, the stuff you find in Ryan Gosling movies or lonely Facebook statuses, the first-world problems, the unnecessary drama that people have decided to label as painful when the only thing being bruised is their overlarge egos

No.

I am talking about actual pain, the kind of pain that sends you to the floor.

Pain that liquefies your mouth and dissolves your retinas,

Pain that twists your insides like a wet rag,

Pain like knives,

Pain like fire,

Pain like swarms of flies,

Pain like you’re a hollow shell,

Pain like you’re a bag of rocks,

Pain like you’re a tree, rotting, decomposing, dying from the inside out

This kind of pain takes your character and your personality and everything that makes you, you, and drags it out through your mouth while you’re gasping for air that refuses to enter your lungs

And in order to fill in the holes and the empty spaces of where there used to be a smile

You become a creature

A monster, even

You bare your teeth, hunch your shoulders, sharpen your claws
You shrink into your most primal self

As a futile attempt to shrug this thing off your back,

This parasite with its teeth sunk deep into your flesh

But it’s not going anywhere

You become consumed
The pain swallows you up and digests you

Its stomach acid burning holes in your memories

By taking over your body, it takes over your mind

The pain plays tricks on your brain

Throws shadows on your sanity,

Whispering wet lies in your ear,

Saying it’s never going to end,

It’s never going to leave you

It’s never going to get any better

You’re never going to get any better

And that’s a promise it’s willing to keep

The pain sticks around

Only detaching itself from you for a little while

Giving you barely enough time to put on your gloves and scrub its filthy stains out of your furniture

Before kicking down your door again,

No

You’re going to have to get used to it

So this pain will linger on your breath

And follow you like a dark cloud

Threatening to storm at any moment

And the worst part is

The pain lives inside you

And you can never escape from yourself so

You have no refuge from the storm

The lucky ones find temporary shelter under

Medicines

Chemicals

Drugs legal and illegal

And sometimes these shelters last long enough to become

Homes

But even when the pain is gone

The fear of its return hangs forever heavy on your shoulders

And honestly

Between the monster and its menacing shadow

I don’t know which is worse