Bleeding

April 3, 2015  |  ibrainmapadmin

I had lunch with a friend last week. She told me her daughter was cutting again. Her own pain was like a dark shadow around her eyes, watching her beautiful daughter hurting herself, and feeling helpless.

She wanted, needed, something to help her. I made some suggestions. They seemed lame and inadequate, and yet are standard practice for self-harming.

I wrote a poem for her daughter this morning. I don’t know if she’ll ever read it because I don’t know if she knows I know, or how she’d feel about me knowing.

Bleeding

Thing in me –

gnaws

scratches

pisses

in my veins

heats blood

growls bones

shits liver.

No-my-body

ugly thing

not mine.

can’t get out

can’t go back

can’t move forward

blind in black,

alone,

leave me alone

don’t wanna be alone

leave me alone.

—

the cool cut

can-open-er

white flesh screaming

red line flows

racing for free

me

free

me

free

salty sweet

bleeding

bleed

me

bleed……

 

 

I don’t know what else to say.

There are times when we are a close witness to the pain of those we love, and powerless to do anything. Sometimes all we can do is let them know we are there, just here beside you.

There are no quick fixes for human pain, yes we can distract ourselves, we can write a poem, take a walk. It all helps, but the truth is, living hurts. Yes it hurts.

The challenge isn’t to stop the pain, theirs or our own, because that is a set up for failure, or addiction to distraction. The challenge is to know how to move through the pain, to find what gets us through. That is the best we/they can do some days, perhaps most days.

And when we know we are resilient enough to weather the thick currents and crackling storms that flesh is heir to we can trust that tomorrow will be brighter, or the next, or the one after that.

The more we try to eradicate the pain, grab onto happiness as our birth-right, the more elusive it becomes. On the other hand grabbing pain and trying to wrestle it to the ground can become a full time job that leaves no room for the pleasure and delight that is tucked up in the corners of every day waiting to be tasted.

For me writing has always been one of those things that allows me to move through pain, loneliness, fear, helplessness and all the other small and large knocks that come banging on my door at times.

And walking is my other best friend when it comes to ways through, and into the bright light of the new day. We each have our bag of tricks that keep us tapping the rhythm of life even when we forget the words of our heartsong.

Happy Easter to you all, and may you find your own bright light, and let it shine even on the darkest nights.