the great pain
Over and over I imagine the blow of a shotgun. The click of a trigger then the explosion in my chest that will obliterate flesh & bone as it ripples through first me and then the air. It would be a relief from The Pain that sinks then sits, settling on top of my gut.
Later a scalpel hovers delicately above the pain. It splits my skin, nerve endings reeling. I am peeled back. The Pain is like a lump of lead, heavier than it should be, prime to be plucked. The Great Hand is above me waving chopsticks, but before it descends I am resealed, flaps roughly pulled together with a rough black thread.
Someone takes a peeler to my back & starts unfurling me strip by strip. I am stripped of my shame. Tiny buds of myself strain upwards towards the light. They believe we can rebuild. My core is on fire & my lands ravaged. A wiser voice reminds me to approach the world with a soft belly, but The Pain has its own gravity & the rest of my being folds inwards towards it, limbs askew.
What do we do with The Pain? We love it. We say “I love you pain” and breathe into belly until it puffs out. Acid rains down around me, leaving a smoking, searing streak of burnt flesh where it has fallen. “We love you, Pain” through gritted teeth.
The Great Hand slips fingers in below my rib cage then curls them up to where my heart used to be, knuckles grazing The Pain. I’m full, overstuffed, but The Pain isn’t muffled. In fact, it sings.
This is the last pebble, the core, the lump under my mattress, in my shoe. “I found it! I found it” life sing-songs & cheers. My swan wings fold in and over it, or attempt to, anyway. I can’t cough it up, can’t cut it out. Below & behind it there is a primal scream that never ceases, needs no breath. The wail goes on so long we can’t hear it until something disturbs us deeply enough to awaken The Pain.
Right now I’m advanced degree burned, road rashed, hanging chained by the feet & skinned, blood ticking into a bucket like an old clock. This won’t last, it can’t. Eventually I’ll dry out like a husk thrown in the corner of an old store room, desert dedicated, mercifully decaying.
Is this love is this love is this love is this love I ask The Great Hand. I’m rolled flat like dough, like fresh oozing asphalt, pressed into submission, my rough spots rounded out.
The Great Hand puppy-pats my head, unconcerned.
Does it love me? Or is it clinically going about its business, conducting the great symphony of karma and awakening, playing us each as cosmic figurines, immune to our suffering, even welcoming of it.