L'Absence de Douleur

What does life hold in trust worth more than an absence of pain?

Is there something greater

Than indignity forgotten:

A nameless constellation of scars without stories?

Whence issues permits for glory and deed

Beyond a failure without fault,

Inured and absorbed like a fence within a tree

Engorging the steel that tears it in twain?

What burns brighter

Than a spark extinguished,

Betrayed by sweat and tears

That snuffed their ally’s worth?

Name a guilder or frederick d’or

That buys a smile more

Than amnesia of all values and stakes,

That turns a moment lost

Into a moment never had

And therefore never needed,

To dissolve like a grain of salt,

Indistinguishable, indistinct, a byproduct of things that rub together.

What investment is more secure,

As the climbing of the mountain into bed,

Or assays at such a vocal pitch

As the poverty wage of self-love?

Nothing drives the value up,

Nor the excitement, nor the zeal,

Like an absence of pain,

Of tedium,

Of existence itself

For existence is its own mortal enemy

And my weapon against mine:

Hope.