I am touching the bleeding edge

I am touching the bleeding edge
of my pain –
its fissured, raw, throbbing,
distended identity –
and I want out.

Courage is not a concept
I understand in this moment.

Neither is Comfort.

Exhaustion is aching my limbs
into a cacophonic cry for help,
backed by the incessant droning
of my original agony.

I cannot fathom an eternity of this.

To sleep,
perchance to heal,
alas,
even this resource is bled
from my strained body.

What I must have done in another body
to deserve such desecration of this one,
I beg fervently for forgiveness and mercy.

It’s all I can do.


Donia Lilly
8 October 2004