I have as much rage as
you have, I have as much pain as you do, I've lived as much hell as you have.
It's a sad thing, but it is so. It's just so.
"Who's spirit is that?"
"Someone who's hurt. She's mad at herself for mistakes that are not hers. She feels betrayed
and has no one left to provide a shoulder to cry on. She's a dark angel. She hides from everyone,
even herself. She behaves in a manner that clouds her true feelings. Her past is a nightmare
she dreams while she is awake, but she does not scream in terror, she laughs in delight."
"Put yourself in my place," he said.
Put yourself in mine, she thought. So much sadness, she could barely contain it.
It was time now, she had to go to the worst parts. Perhaps the pain would give her the
answers she sought. . . soon she would feel no more pain, no more fear, no more betrayal.
Some hurts could heal; others remained always.
We dispersed into the lonesome world of night, where we enjoyed the freedom to be what we
could not help but be. Each night, I would bundle up my misery and stash it in some inaccessible
region of my soul, hoping that when the harsh searching light of day shined its interrogation
lamp in my face, the misery would somehow have disappeared, become lost in the bureaucratic folds
of my mind. I know that I've somehow lost other things in this way - honesty, integrity,
responsibility - but emotional pain is like dog that finds its way three-hundred miles to an
ungrateful master's home.
Why torture ourselves in order to hurt others?
In spite of the fact that you were "right" or, more correctly, because you were, in your
conceit and your stupid pride in your powers you went stumping over ground where each step gave
him pain.
Did you ever try to protect someone so much that it actually. . . hurt?
Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go
at some point in order to move forward.
Bad things are always going to happen in life. People will hurt you. But you can't use
that as an excuse to fail or to hurt someone back.
Each century, the trickeries of need pain me everywhere.
I'm at pains to know what else I could have done.
You will be almost killed, a delight. You will suffer, child, and it will be kind.
But the other pain. . . I would sell my life to avoid, the pain that begins in the crib,
with its bars, or perhaps, with your first breath, when the planets drill your future into you,
for better or worse, as you marry life and the love that gets doled out, or doesn't.
I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward, to the past, where it
mixes with last year's cupful, and downward into a decade's quart, and downward into a lifetime's
ocean. The teaspoon ought to be bearable, if it didn't mix into the reruns and thus enlarge into
what it is not.
Yet, one does get out of bed and start over, plunge into the day and put on a hopeful look
and does not allow fear to build a wall between you and an old friend. One learns not to blab
about all this, except to yourself or the typewriter keys, who tell no one until they get brave
and crawl off onto the printed page.
As for the pain and its multiplying teaspoon, perhaps it is a medicine that will cure the
soul of its greed for love next Thursday.
I have a pack of letters. I have a pack of memories. I could stick them in the washer
and drier, and maybe some of the pain would float off like dirt?
You fell, she said, just remember, you fell. I fell, is all he told the doctors in the
big hospital. A nice lady came and asked him questions, but because he didn't want to be sent
away he said, I fell. He never said anything else, although he could talk fine.
He pretends he is her ball. He tried to fold up and bounce, but he squashes like fruit. For he
loves Blue lady, and the spots of red, red roses he gives her.
You shall live by inflicting pain. You shall forgive.
Nothing hinted that I would suffer so late, this turning away, this longing to be there.
Once, when I was a boy, and the birthday I had waited for was over, I lay on my bed, awake
and miserable, and very late that night, the sound of someone's voice singing down a side street,
dying little by little into the distance, wounded me, as this does now.
The trick is not minding that it hurts.
A learned man was once asked to quote the most meaningful verse that he'd found in the
entire Bible. He thought for a moment then replied, "And it came to pass."
Those who heard his reply were startled. Other learned men in history had been asked this
same question and had picked verses like, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" or "Have we
not all one Father?" Why did you choose such a simple statement like, "And it came to pass"?
asked one of his friends.
"I chose it," answered the learned man, "because whenever sadness enters my life, I think of
this phrase and it helps me. It encourages me to believe that my trouble came only to pass, it
didn't come to stay. And this gives me hope to carry on. It helps me take the bad in life with
the good. It helps me pick out the good parts of life and enjoy them even when I'm surrounded by
sorrow. I know that the sorrow came, but I also know that it will pass, and that I will still be
here then, and must continue to live."
I've learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
I believe that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You
know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He
only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a
crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody
sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as
they would if they could see that crack.
