Breath & Shadow
Summer 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 3
8/10 Pain
written by
Louis Stay
If my pain could speak
it would rip every piece of flesh off my bones
It would shear through fragile threads
of clarity
Scream, an injured animal frothing
It's better to bite through skin
than stay present
It would beat me senseless until I lay
motionless
Fear creeps like a chill
of danger unseen
My pain would pray
Begging senseless deities
through webs of hot iron
Searing cloth
A personalized torture chamber
A life sentence
with nothing but time
A cobra's bite
Paralyzing
Muscles seize, twitch
Bloodless agony
My pain would write poetry
A child begging to be witnessed
Suffocating life
Ivy consuming the tree
It would sing melodies
A siren's song
The antidote always just out of reach
But maybe if you dove
Drowned
She'd withdraw tentacles
Mercifully saved.
Louis Stay is a disabled writer with ME/CFS, documenting his condition and disability through his blog. He writes poetry and non-fiction. He is active in causes supporting disability advocacy and trans rights.