the flatline project

viii. pain

viii. pain

someone once told me

that sometimes the things we do to numb the pain

cause more pain.

I didn't believe them.

not at first.

not when the pain was the only thing I had.

the only thing I could rely on.

pain

momentarily

made the darkness go away.

made the monsters hesitate

before they entered my skull.

once.

if I am being entirely honest

I would rather feel pain

than nothing at all.

because nothingness scares me.

but pain soothes me.

reminds me

that despite

all the hits I've taken

all the claws that have sunk into my skin

all the poison that has been injected into my veins

that I can still feel something.

but one day

that all changed.

one day

my world crashed

and burned.

I am constantly

in pain

and the need to numb that pain is something I can't ignore.

but the things I do to forget

to distract myself from the agony that plagues my mind

only work for so long.

until I resurface.

and the pain hits me

like a crashing wave with a vengeance against the sand.

like a shock of electricity

surging straight for my heart.

and it

c r i p p l e s

me

and

t e a r s

me to pieces

in a way it hadn't before.

it yanks out my makeshift stitches that are barely holding the folds of my skin together.

then comes the blood.

and sometimes

I think it would be better to just let myself bleed out

so that I don't have to deal with the agonising torment that pain brings.

I do not know

how I survive 

such pain.

maybe I don't survive

and I am nothing more than a skeleton roaming the land

with nothing more than the thinnest of thread holding me together.

maybe I am just skin

and bones

that are too cracked too shattered too sharp to be of any use.

the things we do to numb the pain

definitely

cause more pain.

what a vicious cycle

we find ourselves

trapped in.