The Ruder Guest

What do you prefer?

Once, Pain and Hurt 

came to visit me.

along with their friend, Injury.

Uninvited, they moved in,

poking and prodding, 

drawing blood.

I cursed them for being 

such ill-mannered guests.

Pain smirked and left.

Hurt faded as a dream.

Injury too turned herself 

into a memory.

I healed but felt nothing at all.

I pulled, pinched,

and  tugged-

just to feel something, 

anything, searching

for a tiny cut, a wee sore, 

any wound left raw. 

But my insides were sealed,

cemented and dead. 

And then it hit me 

- My painlessness was 

more painful than my pain.

Author's Note

Art: Success, noise and Xanax
Acrylic painting; Brand: Miloš Hronec

Reviews

[Dennis Wolf]

Trade deppy and pain for apathy 🤔 not a good deal, if 'n ye ask me.
Numbness isn't hurting... But it does kill, slowly but surely, like a cancer.

Life can be agonizing, what makes us live can hurt mercilessly, but not the things that kill us.

Nicely written.

[DIVYA]

Thanks Dennis. You're right about numbness killing. No wonder some people cut themselves. So dead, they want to feel something probably. Twisted isn't it? Yet simple. Thanks a lot for the kind review.

[Dennis Wolf]

It actually makes sense in a way, yes.
It was a good read.

[DIVYA]

Thank you! 😊

[FlatDaddy]

A wonderful read, Divya, and I have felt the pain, terrible pain, and continue to do so on a lighter scale thanks to prescribed medication. I haven't felt that complete absence of pain, the numbness you describe, but after twenty+ years of the other, I would welcome it. Oh, I could be stoic about it and say, "pain is an old friend I've come to accept," but f**k that. I'd rather have it gone -- the numbness can move in where it was (but ONLY there) and it would be sooo welcome, However, I have known people who do welcome pain. A fifteen year old girl I once knew was a cutter, and she had terrible scars on both arms and most likely elsewhere that I could not see. She told me that cutting was the only way she could feel anything, and I can understand, but it was and is so very sad.
A beautiful piece, Divya.

[DIVYA]

Thank you so much. Pain can indeed be terrifying and if struck one can think of nothing but to get rid of it. When I wrote this, I was fleetingly despairing of how unfeeling I had become towards someone who had really mattered at one time and I could welcome anything, even pain to replace this apathy.

[FlatDaddy]

I do understand. You are in a world of poets now, so you have much company.