We Writhe – and press Bitter
Utterances from our Writhing²
We let the Hurts Blow through our
Branches like a Breeze, and use the
Music of Rustling Leaves as a Balm³
They say the World is Round, and yet
I think it’s Square: so many little Hurts
We get from its Corners, here and there⁴
Heavenly Hurt – we can find no Scar, but
Internal Difference, where the Meanings are⁵
One Accepts acute physical Pain, one endures it
Complainingly or Defiantly, one feels it Swell &
Increase, and sometimes there’s a Raging, Mocking
Curiosity – as to how much further the Pain can go⁶
The Sufferers Die, they leave their Pain: the Pangs
Which Tortured them Remain – Inheritors of thy
Distress have restless Hearts one Throb the Less⁷
The mark of Rank in Nature is Capacity
For Pain: the Anguish of the Singer
Makes – the Sweetest of the Strain⁸
In the Eternal Saga of Pain, we’re
Teardrops in the Dove’s Cooing⁹
Stunned that the Sun Shines
So Bright after all our Pain¹⁰
¹ David Foster Wallace, Forever Overhead
² Wallace Stevens, Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction
³ Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
⁴ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Life’s Scars
⁵ Emily Dickinson, There’s a Certain Slant of Light
⁶ Hermann Hesse tr. Hilda Rosner, The Journey to the East
⁷ Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse
⁸ Sarah Williams, Is It True?
⁹ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Amira El-Zein, The Kindhearted Villagers
¹⁰ Audre Lorde, Walking Our Boundaries