what if
the fact that
we make all meaning
wasn’t so frightening
what if
all that happened to you
simply happened
not by some secret choice
not by your soul’s decree to test you with this struggle
not by some greater need for you to know this pain
but just by chance
by the unequal equilibrium of time
and your passage through it
pain is not a prize
neither is its end
what if
we learned to love
the fact that
there is
nothing
to love
(2022)
I rarely explain my poetry. If the meaning isn’t embedded in the words and cadence then I’ve written it wrong.
In this case I wish it known, as I am attempting to offer a counter narrative to the idea that suffering is both virtuous and necessary. Trauma isn’t really a gift. It isn’t a magical “teaching.” It’s one’s recovery from a painful or stressful experience that is the teaching. Trauma is the damage that occurs when we have no teacher.
Suffering in itself is not particularly noble. Maybe you need to believe it is, as part of your journey to overcoming your trauma, but it was not and is not necessary for you to experience pain in order for you to be a whole person. The nobility of suffering is a lie of power, to make the oppressed love their oppression.
You do not need to burn in order to rise.
You didn’t deserve to be hurt.
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