The pain

The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body - Publilius Syrus

It's impossible to fathom. You shake your head trying to deny the thoughts that are lurking there. You keep screaming "No !" in your mind even as your heart realises the fact. Recognises it. Like a shard of glass searing all other thoughts.

You close your eyes, but the hard, cold reality is there. Ever there. Like a fugitive, you try to run away from it. But the faster you run, it seems to only be keeping close to your heels. You turn away from it, but it faces you in the face every time. Wildly, you look for a way out, but the escape evades you. You feel the dreams and fantasies you had of life slipping through your fingertips. Slowly, achingly and surely.

You look around at the familiar faces surrounding you but you only see strangers. You search hard for something you recognise but you seem to find none. Like a mirage, they blur before you. Fading away. It is brutal. But it is also that brutality that lets you know you're still alive, because it pierces through the numbness you made yourself feel. It invades the sanctuary in which you seek solace in, away from the facts.

The pain is there. Ever insistent to let you know of it's cruel existence. It grips and twists around your heart. Steel manacles that latches onto your most sensitive nerves. Upending them. You're nothing but a jangled mass of mixed emotions. Of pent-up rage you try hard to contain, but as each fact sets in, you lose control.Notch by notch. You cling tenaciously to wit's end. Praying and hoping that all this is just a dream. An evil one. But no, it's real. It's real because you run but keep tripping over those same feelings you're fleeing from. And each time you fall, the pain magnifies. Intensifies. Until those tears you tried so hard to keep inside starts to spill. Bringing with it the release of that evil monster you were running from but couldn't hide from. Unleashed, it does more damage. Like an ocean of icy cold water, it douses the fire and passion for life that fueled you and kept you going. Tears pour from your soul, streaking white hot paths down your cheeks as you confront 'it'. You look it in the eye. The tormented facing the tormentor.

It takes an effort, but you force yourself to sleep. Fitful, dreamless sleep. For a while, it seems as if the transparent sheet of glass separating you and shielding you from the realities out there has crashed to the ground. Shards of broken glass are all that's left of the security you once felt.


But as the first beams of sunrise peek from behind those clouds and morning dawns, the truth glimmers at you the way sunlight glints off the edges of those sharp glass, bringing with it a flicker of hope. You avert your eyes from it but it doesn't deny the fact that it's there. But, you bolster up your courage and try to piece together the scattered pieces of the puzzle. Time heals all wounds, but like a piece of broken glass pieced together, the scars still remain. A reminder of that pain you felt so deep. A token of your bravery in picking up the pieces of your life after that. Memories of those who kept by your side. Keeping a silent vigil over you. Trying to infuse their own strength and spirit into yours. They too, felt a fragment of your pain, but only you know the magnitude of it because you got the brunt of it all. Of misplaced trust. Of misconstrued care. The events that led to that inevitable pain. The pain, of betrayal.