PAIN

PAIN

by

Sandra Osborne

Your first sense of it is as if an iron hand
Has torn through your body
Gotten a good grip on your heart
And is ripping it out.

You watch in horror as dripping red
Your heart is dropped to the ground
“That’s my heart”! You want to shriek out
But you discover you’ve lost your voice in the shock
In deep trauma you continue watching speechlessly
As a giant foot crashes down on your heart
And stomps it into nothingness.

The carnage leaves a hole  
Where your heart should have been
In that moment everything seems surreal
With your senses reeling
Your world seems to swim visually before your eyes
In bright colors, patterns, voices.

It’s a moment you’ll never forget
And then on auto pilot you shift
From blank shock to the face of the perpetrator.
It is the face of a friend
Much beloved.
The words
Shredding your equilibrium
Uncaringly
Adding chaos and confusion
To your grief stricken state of mind.

And that’s just the first wave of pain
That hits you in the gut with the power
Of an engine coming at you 140kmph.
Your body and mind close to breaking point
Valiantly try to create a bridge
Between cause and effect
And to use logic as state of the art defense
But you discover there is no adequate defense
From a blow to the heart from a friend.

Realization comes with the second wave of pain
Fiercer and larger than the first
It engulfs you, chokes you, surrounds you
The merry mind is abruptly stilled
The throat numbed in pain.
Your eyes blink rapidly warning signals per second
Of a storm of tears to come.
To delay that, you stare, to focus and stay in control
To buy time to make sense of this human betrayal
To somehow stop the world from spinning before you.

While one half of your mind copes
With your present state of crisis
The other half of your mind jumps back
To a betrayal such as this
On 15 March 44 BCE
When Caesar’s eyes fell on Brutus
As he stabbed his knife into Caesar
Delivering the cruelest cut of all
With hands that came away
Red and bloodied from the wound.
The pain that assaults you now
Is as real as the anguish and disbelief
That Caesar felt that day eons ago.
Your wounds are not visible as Caesar’s cuts
But they are just as shocking
And officially lists you among the walking dead.

Suspended in shock
Emotions flood you
You watch reason fly out of the window
And your feelings go mad
Stretching your self-control to its limit.
It is then
Mother Nature reaches out with a safety valve
Immediately starting her healing process
Reeling you in from your threshold of pain.

“I trusted you with my heart
And you tore it apart.
No more” your mind screams, “No more”!
“A God with clay feet you turned out to be
A con artist, a slayer
Of all that is beautiful and true.
How could you be so dishonorable?
Did you swear devotion with a forked tongue?
Every word you uttered then and now
Are just meaningless.
Manipulative, merciless
Biding your time to stick in the knife
And all the while basking in my love
And goodness of mind and spirit.
What devilry urged you to
Execute this diabolic day”?

“Did I not submit everything in love
And treasure the wild hair of your head?
Have I not always been there for you
Through all your triumphs and failures?
Have we not spent hours, days, months and years
In much laughter, understanding and togetherness?
Good times, fun times
And many a magical moment.
Does integrity, loyalty, love and commitment
Mean nothing to you”?

For have I not supported you and nourished you
With my presence when you needed me?
Have I not been loyal beyond all doubt?
Where have I ever lacked in passion and love for you
Pray tell
What is it that you needed from me and did not get?
For I have left no stone unturned in my devotion to you
How is it you see no wrong in uttering
Such damning and damaging words”?

“You loved me once but now you care about me?
Is that it?
And now you want to be my friend?!
After all these years together
If that isn’t laughable I don’t know what is.
Just give me a moment to ponder your request.
As I live and breathe you were always
My very best friend and you shall be that again
But first you must cry me an avalanche of tears
With anguish so great the very air that surrounds us
Should draw back in awe of you
Trembling, at your agony.

Can you cry for my belief in you?
That has been shattered
Can you return to me
Those wonderful hours of my life
That I spent honoring and loving you?
And tell me did you ever stop me
From falling seriously in love with you?
How did you get from being besotted
To becoming abruptly a brute?

Sure I’ll be your friend now
If you will be mine
And do as I ask in return.
Experience the pain first hand
Misery likes company
So come cry an ocean of tears with me
Cry so deeply that Heaven opens up its floodgates
And cries with you a deluge of tears
To the demise of an idea, an illusion that was you.
Cry for your faithlessness
Bereave for your spirit
So shallow, so insincere.
Above all
Can you cry my pain for me?
If you can do that
I’ll be your friend forever”.

Abruptly you pull the reins
Your thoughts screech to a halt
Bucking and struggling
Against the restraint
But determined for the present
Not to let your pain show
You look away saying
“Just go”.
In time this pain
Might go away too
For the present its intensity
Is crucifying
Terrifyingly real
Physically and mentally
Paralyzing.

Hope remains
And thunder clouds
Of catharsis
Loom ahead
Like an omen
That one day
The heart
Will heal
And be free
To love
And be loved in return.

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