Pain.

Hello?

"..."

No one is listening....

I remember bedsheets made of Cotton. Daisy scattered covers. Shards of sunlight through blinds that drag up in one corner from violent handling. I remember.... I remember swallows at twilight, filling the air with music sweeter than sugar. I remember the smell of the rain as it fell upon the freshly mown grass. I remember the annoyance of a pinky toe peeking through a whole in my sock.....I remember....

"..."

Now there is only pain. How do I get rid of it?

"..."

Ah, but there is no one to answer me.

"Hello, I've got a suggestion, would you like to hear it?"

Oh....Someone has answered. Yes, Please....what is it?

"Just walk away from the pain."

I can't....The world is a vast ocean and the waves tear down every step I take away.

"Reach up. There is always a helping hand where one is needed."

Oh, but the winds push against my hands and I am thrust into the watery depths.

"Dive down beneath the waves. You will find solace there."

No, you see, it doesn't work. The currents only sweep my legs out from under me, bringing me down, down, down, then up, up, up, once again....

"There must be a way...."

There is not. Perhaps I must stay here for eternity, or sink beneath the surface....

"No, let me think...."

Ok....

"Aha, tell me what it is, tell me how it feels...."

I do not understand.

"Tell me about the pain."

The pain....

"Yes."

It tricks me.... It turns my eyes inside out and makes what is real fake, and what is fake real. How did we discover fact and fiction...? I wonder....

"I am listening."

It sneaks in when I least expect. The pain. It drowns the happiness I felt just minutes before as if it can't stand that I am happy. How petty....I suppose I understand it. It has to come back and haunt me, otherwise, what is it but nothing? Pain just like happiness has to be seen, to be felt, to be heard, to be affirmed, in order to know that it is real. Perhaps it simply Wishes for its sanity. Yet it takes mine in exchange.

"Where are you?"

I am everwhere and nowhere. I am swimming through an ocean and trudging through a desert. I am swinging through forests and weaving through skyscrapers. I am lying in a field of dandelions and I am locked inside a cell. I am in the ground and in the space above.

"No, Where is your body? Where is the heart that pumps your blood through each and every vein. Where is the brain that forms the words you speak to me. Your mind is with me, but where is the body that carries you?

A room. A room littered with sticky notes. Sticky notes reminding me to feel happy, to eat healthy, to clean the mess around me, to let the sun brush my nose, my lips, my hair.

"Where is this room? This room of sticky notes."

This room.....This room....Do I know?

"Do you?"

I should. I should....let me remember.....

"Ok."

I remember....lakes and mountains. Fields and rivers. Clouds and forests. I remember leaves and soil. Worms and robbins. I remember a house. Is this house mine?

"Describe it."

A winking pig. Windows forming eyes, one small and sly. The entryway roof shaping the bridge of its nose. The door and its windows making nostrils. Blue. It is blue. I miss that blue. But, but it is not mine. Is it? No, this is memory that I am no longer in.

"I see....What are you going to do now?"

I don't know....Tell me.

"Embrace the pain."

Embrace.....Why?

"It is lonely and would like to feel loved. Love it, and perhaps it will have mercy."

I see....

"Did it work?"

Thank you....

"You are welcome."

...

"Goodbye."

Goodbye.

"..."

...