A man once said whatever doesn’t kill you
only makes you stronger. He was wrong.
I say: as long as I cling on to living,
I am weak, for I can still feel pain.
Yet clearly I don’t suffer pain enough,
for greater pain than this, by killing me—
or that in me which feels pain at all—
would thereby make me nigh invincible.
The dead don’t feel pain—therefore, they’re strong.
Self-less, because their selves have been wiped out—
they have been mort-ified and crucified,
and in death glorified and deified—
they have no selves to feel any pain.
It isn’t that which hurts yet doesn’t kill,
but what dials up the pain beyond all feeling—
killing, numbing, and desensitizing
all in me that feels pain at all—
this, and this alone, will make me stronger.
So I desire pain: more pain than this
intolerable pain—this pain that I
can’t tolerate is still not pain enough.
Only pain that kills will make me stronger.
***
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