Pain

Pain is grey, bleak
Stained with the blood of love’s beaten corpse
It tastes brackish, bitter, salty
Like hope disappointed
And smells like sea brine and
Stale, recycled air

Pain likes to break people for fun
I am a favored toy
Easily angered by happiness
It is saddened by love
And is happy only when I am immersed
In a miasma of hurt and self-loathing

It is smaller than hate and depression
Yet bigger than wholeness
It’s worst enemy is
A healing heart
While it joins hands with betrayal
And those who betray their loved ones

Pain has a secret place, locking up
A single grain of happiness
A healing thought
It likes to be in a dark, dank place
A windowless room, with its victims
And hates to be without its prey or with happy people

Its greatest accomplishment was
Overcoming my love and trust
Yet its worst failure
Was letting me finally heal
Pain makes me feel hateful, hopeless
Broken
Until I finally find a light in the dark