Hard Hours

Hard hours find me
Bent like an apostrophe
Doubled in pain
Wanting nothing more
Than whatever it takes
To take me away
Rip me from
Consciousness
Anything
To sever my neural receptors
From the transmission
Of agony.

It is not possible
To describe pain
Except to say
It is the enemy
Of kindness
And grace
The antithesis
Of mercy.

It is far easier
To say what it is not
Than what it is.

But in those moments
When pain is all I feel
All I know
Or understand
The most frightening reality
Is not the pain.

It’s what I’m willing to do
To be out of it.