Love Pain

Pain.

It rips through my body in waves

Starts in the middle and shoots

outward

Into my legs

My arms

Wraps itself around my back

I retch

Only air and the faint scent of dinner escape

Another wave

Tears through me

I roll into a ball and weep

Want to slide out of my skin

Shed it

Give it away

Hours I spend like this

Rocking

suffering

Bawling

At the hospital

I get relief

Until a new pain yanks me into its violent embrace

The earth shakes

Splits me in half

Head spinning

Mouth parched

Eyes squeezed tight

I cry unabashedly

And then I stop

Someone else is crying too.

Suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore

I don’t feel anything

But

Pure

Innocent

Love.

Authors note: this is an inverse poem. Read both ways, top to bottom, then bottom to top.