Hurt - Feb 5 2025

 

Hurt

Feb 5 2025

He asked about the pain.

But his tone was more inquisition

than sympathetic,

methodically checking off the boxes

on a standard form.

He was like a clerk

taking inventory

for tax purposes.

Questions like “where” and since “when”?

Like “how” did it start

have you had it before?

While the “who” is self-evident,

and the “what”, of course, the thing itself.

But the “why” is never asked

even though we ask ourselves.

It’s a question that’s too abstract

for an inquisition,

too unanswerable

for an interrogator

who knows what he wants and how to get it.

One of those questions

that are best left

to philosophers and poets.

To what end do we suffer,

why is no one spared?

And why so much pain in the world?

So universal and unremitting

the wails and screams

rising up to heaven

must have deafened the gods

long ago.

Pain,

an immeasurable thing

without mass or energy,

yet weighs us down

and sucks it out.

The “why me”

which we also ask

is too metaphysical

to bother struggling with.

Might as well ask "why anyone”?

And anyway

why not me?

The really hard question

is what sort of pain.

Sharp, aching, dull?

Intermittent

or unrelenting?

Does it gnaw or throb

ever stop?

How strong?

Because when you’re in pain

it simply hurts.

My thoughts are not analytical.

I’m not a linguist

calibrating words.

Not a physicist

measuring astronomical distances,

a theologian

counting how many angels

can dance on the head of a pin.

What I want to know is how long.

Until it’s gone,

until I’m out of pain.

    … Whatever the cause

just so long as it goes away.

Because when you’re in it

pain is everything.

Every action and thought

preoccupied.

Every emotion

distilled to fear, anger, envy.

The fear of uncertainty,

anger at fate,

envy

of those who are free of it.

There are faces on a pain scale.

Mine is gritted, pale, tense.

But how do I know what 10 is

when mine feels as bad as it gets?

    … Or at least until it gets worse.

How high

until I’m consumed by it?

Reduced

to a simpering animal

caught in the trap,

chewing through its leg

to free itself.

Actually, it was Sunday I swam, not Monday. And yes, it was brisk!

I really wanted to get in the pool today. But the sciatica was/is bad, and it felt better to just stay put.

When I finally got comfortable, I was ensconced in my reading/writing easy-chair and thought might as well write something. Not hard to come up with a subject today!

First draft, so I apologize for any rough spots.

Not sure of the title. Your thoughts?

I exaggerated the intensity. Not as extreme as the final metaphor! But one is allowed a certain poetic license. And the narrator could be speaking for anyone. Who says it has to be me?