Poems about The Experience of Pain

Original—Poem #11
2024

Rediscovering your inner child is supposed to feel like a breakthrough
For me, it feels like a breakup

I don’t think my inner child wants to speak to me
She thinks I don’t like her, wanting to remain apart

But I want her to know how much I love her
How much I have yet to learn from her

She’s so strong and courageous
She’s the reason I am where I am today
She protected me in ways unimaginable

Though she feels worthless, like a piece of garbage
I want to take away those feelings from her and show her what she truly is
Worth more and a piece of divine love

Little one, please give me a second chance
Don’t break up with me again

I can't afford to keep losing you at the cost of my suppressions
I am ready for us to journey into joy and wisdom

We can recover in peace and love
I know it’s scary but it’s not yours to carry

I will take care of the pain
I want you to enjoy your lovely life

You’ve always deserved it and I’m sorry you never got to enjoy any of it
But I’m here to take away your burdens that were never yours to carry
And lay down happy, fun, creativity for they were always yours to carry

I was a mistake...
No little one, you were never a mistake

You are my treasure
My abundance of joy

You’re the reason I get up every day
I live for you, in hopes that you can live for you

Give me another chance
I’ll think about it...

That’s okay little one, think about it and even if it’s a no
I will accept your beautiful wishes
For you deserve to be respected and valued

You are human and a child of God
When and if you’re ready, just know I will be here, ready to turn your tears into joy

Love you little one

—the end

I was born at the start of winter
Seven months later my mother passed away
Four months later my nightmare began
She came to our house as a live-in nanny
But her plans were of another nature
By the age of seven and suffering her physical, psychological abuse
Another nightmare began, started by my brother
He had decided to use me as a man would use a woman
And the family did nothing until he was caught red-handed
He left the house to never return again,
But the damage done by both and could never be undone
Now my journey to heal has just begun
And let me tell you straight, it is not any fun
To talk to others who had the same
Seems to help heal the pain
But in my heart of hearts I know
Although the pain will heal and peace may come
But nothing in the world can truly heal and remove the damage done.

HUNGER

“You need to eat before you pass out.
Hello?
Missy?
Why aren’t you eating?
What's wrong with you?”

…hurt
hurt, hurt, HURT.

Why should I eat, when they starved me for over a decade?
Eat before I pass out you say?
But I've already passed out,

And NO!
It wasn't because I didn't eat,
That's what they kept voicing,
But it WASN'T because I didn’t eat!
It’s simply because I am not being me,

“Me?
What kind of foolishness are you talking about?”

I’m talking about expressing my need for hunger,
My need,
My desperation,
My hurt,
For hunger.

hunger, hunger, hunger,
For my dark soul,
Deep below,
Deep within,
All alone,

He’s all I ever thirst or hunger for,
For He fills me up with His wisdom and knowledge,
On how to be hungry for me,
Before I pass out in the hands of my roots once again.

He reminds me,
Only I can feed myself now,
Feed me with oneness in my mind, body, heart, and soul,

And for that, I am grateful to know,
To have the Lord be part of my dusty life,
The life He can take back,
In the split of a second,
Amen.

SARALIVES…ON
**Trigger Warning**

Never seeing a way out,
Corrupted by the greatest enemy of all;
…the inner me,

"You piece of garbage,
Who do you think you are?
Why would anyone care for your existence?
You low life, you're a failure,

You want to know why people laugh at you?
It's because you're a disgusting piece of garbage,
When you talk, they laugh.
When you cry, they laugh.
When you breathe, they laugh.
If you just open your mouth, they bawl out with laughter.

Just end yourself already,
Go grab the razor blade,
Go grab the bottle of pills,
Go grab the garbage bag,
Go grab the bleach,
Go get that string from your robe,
I wish you were dead already,

No one will hear you except me,
I promise you are safe,
Safe with me,
Remember this, no one cares about you,
So, there really is no point to living,
Kill yourself. End it. Stop it."

STOP! STOP! STOP!
WHY WON'T IT STOP?
I CANNOT GET IT TO STOP!
help me, my mind has taken over, and i cannot control it any longer,
am i really the creator of these thoughts? it cannot be so…

"But it is so, stop trying to blame another soul, you pile of dust"

I JUST WANT PEACE! PEACE! PEACE!

"Yeah? Peace? Who do you think you are?
You won't ever get peace. You deserve to suffer you piece of garbage."

God? Lord? Source? Universe? Are you out there?
Oh…Please be there Lord, stay with me,
I don't think I will ever have eternal peace.
(with a sigh) "Yeah, I'll never have eternal peace..."

I am going to suffer forever,
My soul will suffer forever,
Please Lord, I did NOTHING wrong,
I was just a little kid,
A small, young, innocent little kid,

Who was supposed to receive LOVE, instead receiving a great deal of FEAR,
Though her true essence has always been of LOVE,

She loved those close to her, but they turned against her,
She loved Life, but Life remained a closed door,
She loved her grandma so dearly, but grandma was never known,
She loved her dad, but dad was never there,

That’s when it all started…
The destruction of MY mind, body, heart, and soul,
She doesn’t understand why or how, but that it started,

For the past decade or more,
It's been ME and A GREAT DEAL OF DENIAL...
DENIAL...DENIAL...DENIAL...
And after 21 years of being alive, I have finally been set free by the Truth,
By the Grace of God, My Lord, My Savior,

Let me share with you,
Share that the inner me, that wounded inner child,
Has now become my ally whom I will protect forever,
Because WE know it came from the others, not the self,
Thank You Lord, The Truth is setting me free.
SARA LIVES ON...

The kitchen table
In the house where I grew up
Was wooden, cold and stained

Came apart in the middle
Like so many ruined meals
And other realities hard to digest

Silences which say more than words can say
Furtive glances the only I love you
Support incomplete, bond left unspoken

When we left the house where I grew up
The kitchen table stayed behind
But the dining room table came with us

A place to spend and fear the holidays
An anchor to hold us to our past
When we did not know how to be a family

I don’t remember,
I try to see
Was it ever better?
It had to be
I felt it first
at the age of three,
It came up from the black
when it came for me.

In the blink of an eye
It consumed me whole
It felt like drowning
Like falling
Like freezing cold
Like fever
Like sorrow
Like burning rain
Like hunger
Like poison
Like prison
Like chains

I still carry it now
It’s a hole I can’t patch
Soaking wet, that won’t dry
Gnawing itch i can’t scratch
It’s a scar that won’t heal
A wound that bleeds and bleeds
Its not all that I am
But it’s in all of me

l numb myself and I try,
and I try not to get numb
And I clutch to the light on the days when there’s sun
But every step that ive taken
Is further from the place I want to be
Its clear from my footprints
Im moving laterally

But then you found me that day
You called out to me
You came with the light
And you gave some light to me
Your voice was like music
Your heart was pure gold
Your touch was like magic
We fit like a mold

You showed me your journey
What it meant to be strong
How it felt to truly love,
To be loved
To belong.

And for a moment I could make it
For a moment I could see
Together we could do it
Together...
You & Me
Together we’d do anything
I had you
You had me
But then my darkness met your darkness

And now you’re gone
It was all a dream

I promised to protect you
You promised not to run
I held the pain you gave me
You said
Be strong, it won’t be long
But when I fell and begged for mercy
That you wouldn’t do
Because the pain i asked you to hold for me
Was just too heavy for you.

So last night we danced together
One last time
To our song
And you said you’d always love me
But what we had was gone
So my love, forever, I’ll hold you
In the space where we first met
And I’ll try to become a better man
Who you’re trying to forget

I sit here with my darkness
If it’s all I’m meant to be
At least this sucking bleeding pain
Is familiar to me
I’m sifting through the carnage
Its heavier than before
Was it ever better?
It doesn’t matter anymore .

Now these memories of you and I
Are like weeping child
Watching his mother die

Like a wasted hope
Or a wasted plan
For a wasted life
By a wasted man

For more art, see @ukcanjamz

The constant shame and self-judgement.
The many times I tried to tell someone and froze.
Feeling like I was a target for abuse to happen. What had I done to cause it?
My innocence was lost. Who would love someone like me?
Plagued by feelings of unworthiness.
Existing for others and never for myself.
Feeling lost, alone, unseen.
My true self hides in the shadows no more.

I look for codeine on the faces of boys, in the taste of thumbs wiping underneath my eyes, in the mattresses with three untucked corners and the stain of loneliness tattooed onto the hem of its comforts, where she fucks herself just to feel loved because no man should touch the demons in her spit, the death in her lungs, the disease of her mind. And I cannot give it away, because I am a sheep-in-a-wolf’s-skin virgin. And I feel that by speaking this, by the end of the night, I won’t be. That’s the relationship I have with humanity.
I have makeup on my hands from trying to make all of the ugly pretty, and they don’t teach you in high school how to breathe through the carbon; they tell you just to make diamonds. Tell that to the little girl halving my insides, locked in the cupboard because she doesn’t want anyone to hear her cry after the father figure of her life ripped himself from it in the burn of Velcro, and why the fuck did she make herself like Velcro? Did she not know it only burns for the surface left behind? That the bandaid feels no pain being ripped from the scraped knee of a toddler? That the mask simply falls after the masquerade, leaving the unseen seen and vulnerable? Why did she make herself of Velcro? Why did she make it so easy for broken to smoke his twelve pack inside of her… like the hand beneath her blouse, and why does everyone justify it with the insanity of age?
No! I was too young to be split like the hairs on my head, the ones my mother wasn’t pulling to make sure her palm connected. What sound are you even supposed to make when you’re being massacred in half? And I can’t stand myself long enough to fully love myself for the propriety in hating myself. And you had no right to tie my apple limbs around your own and shake the produce from my face - this is not a game of how quick we can spoil the fruit or break in the jewelry cases of little glass girls. Because she was a girl, and she trusted you.
And my words are not baseball bats in a messy, touching collision with your chest. My words will not bring the cheering masses to crest on the lonely shore of my lonely mind, because these words are not poetry.
These words are the words spent too long in silence. They are the words ripped from a young girl’s rusty, faucet-throat when she’s screaming nothing but the made bed of silence. These words mean nothing to those standing on the shore of the riverbank, watching the currents as they drown boys too young and baptize girls too old; and they will not matter to the bodies beneath them, cheeks bloating in the salt of their embryonic pockets.
But these words matter to a girl at war with herself and god. To a sister constantly worrying when she will lose to the water. To this girl, who is screaming her eyes dry to you now, because these words nesting in the caves of my throat have been silent for too long.