Pain - a conundrum

Pain - a conundrum

What is pain?

Is it the inability to do
Or the inability to be

The freedom to go unnoticed
Or the stigma of standing out


Is it doing life alone
Or being lost in a crowd

The lost innocence of youth
Or the lost decades of life


Is it the frustrations of trying
Or the constrictions when you do

Is it life going on without you
Or is it the absence of you


Is it the noises that escape when your body needs to move
Or the loss of ability to do what you do

Is it the crushing sensation that make it impossible to breathe
Or the belief you are not worthy to do so, let alone eat


Is it that dank bottomless pit that threatens to devour you
Or the effort it takes to pull yourself out again


Is it your sense of learned helplessness
Or your fiery stoicism

Is it the fear of change
Or the senselessness of sameness


Is it energy sapping mind distortions
Or loss and it’s accompanying grief

Is it a series of tangible trigger points
Or a figment of the imagination

Is it chemicals in the body
Or the cry of the Divine


The experience of the individual

The domain of minorities

Or the burden of the collective


Pain
Who has the right to judge
Who has the right to compare


Pain
The conundrum
Does it even exist


Pain
A choice to live
Is it a gift?