Yours Truly, Pain.

I will skip pleasantries and get straight to the point as I write this to you

You have been alive long enough to know pain

To know that it comes in different types, shapes, strengths and measures

That there is no mistaking it when it comes

With it’s insane demand to be felt, to be acknowledged

You have lived long enough to learn how to develop ways to handle it

You tried to ignore it but that didn’t work

So you tried out other strategies

You wanted it to stop, you lost yourself in your work but still it lingered on

You tried to sleep it away but it followed you in your dreams and was there with you still when you woke up

You have popped countless pills to keep it at bay

You tried to eat it away and instead you made it made expand its base with the snickering comments about how fat and ugly you’d become

Your tummy and joints hurt too

So you drank the acceptable and legalized poison that filled your stomach and made you forget for a bit

Until it woke you up in the morning with a splitting headache and rushed you to the bathroom to retch it out

You set fire to your chest, filled it will hot smoke in an attempt to burn it out from the inside but it just made your throat and lungs hurt more.

It was there still, unwanted but still staying, changing and growing with you

You learned to cut yourself, to give yourself small sharp doses of it in an attempt to forget even for minute that you carried it in your entire being, in everything that made you you.

You let people who didn’t deserve you touch your most delicate parts because even for a while, it made you forget the pain and you could feel something else

You suffered in silence but sometimes you screamed

You have learned now to make it your friend, to hold its hand even as it rips you apart.

You don’t run from it anymore and when it comes you welcome it, acknowledge it’s presence and let it pass.

Most times you wear it like its a layer of skin, in your thoughts and in your emotions like its a vital part of you

You have claimed it and made it yours even when you sometimes still struggle with it

This pain, you made it your friend and it keeps you company.

And perhaps always will, keep you company I mean.