Plain to see

The singularity of pain

Dynamic

Isolating

Debilitating

Compounding

Hyperbolic

Frightening

Intensifying

Seemingly without respite

The pain of a stubbed toe

Of contracting uterine muscles

Of a dash of the shin into the edge of the table

Of tiny joints in the knee collectively ganging up on you

Exactly the same yet exactly different

Pain is unifying

Though solid yet fleeting

A thoughtful "I know"

A thought "this is the last of it now"

Small kindnesses we give each other

Making it just a little bit more bearable

Pain lives in the brain

Pain you can exorcise methodically 

If you just calm your frayed nerves

Control your breath, gradually unflexing

The tightly held fists

The strained thigh and glute muscles

Pain is thus, purely physical, if only you separate the you from the you feeling it

Pain shared is pain saved

Pain spoken about is pain dissipated

Pain written about is pain cathartically removed

Going to be gone

I made that arduous journey today

I thought that thought

I went there where the full spectrum of what I could imagine was realized

Mind, very unkindly, stretched to its maximum

Manifesting my deepest fear just through the power of thinking it, and without any transit

A red eye to what feels like self destruction 

At 3.33 am, am I to find my way back to sleepy oblivion?

Or am I too doomed, try as I might:

A mere prisoner locked in my own brain cells for the night?

I won't make any bones about it anymore

Had I faced the morning without this forced revelation, I would have been weak

Lasted about a miserable week

Before the thought, unthought and elusive

Would sprung up unwanted and unbidden

And then I'd be a body of just namesake bones

Not in the least ready to face the onslaught

The attack of the most unpleasant of all ideas

That one day all that will be left is bones

Soulless

Of the ones I hold on to so tightly

That I harbour attachment to beings who are but a phenomenon called existence

Of being human as a human being

That I am myself a phenomena 

Transient yet complete as a washing machine cycle

Going through the same preset of motions as those who have departed before us

What is waiting for us is hidden in plain view

Like a naughty child behind opaque curtains

We are but freed when its time to go is what is said

We are fed that our physicality is happilly abandoned for the freedom of flying

But it is truly the most unknowable thing

What happens when you die

All you can do is hope you leave for grazing greener grass

Theorize that it is a relieving, and revealing experience

Like the ultimate putting down of papers

The hanging of your towel after the last shower

Rinsing flesh that won't feel the gush of life

The towel, dried freshly by the sun brings warmth to the next user

That is all one can hope for

That is all you can do

That all that is knowable is neither why we came here

Nor where we go when we leave

But we can fulfill but a simple duty

We can leave behind comfort for those who outlive us

And with that resolution, I assume the responsibility to live so

To allow bodily functions like sleep to hijack me

To permit the day and all that it brings to take place

To live like a being attached to other beings

With hopefully just a little more awareness

Come to Point Nemo

My cuticles are a reflection of my state of mind

It's an unsightly habit I inherited from my father over time

My pauses aren't impregnated with the unsaid

But are intervals of quiet non evasive pondering on the bed

Thoughts about plastic beaches in the middle of the South Pacific

Of forgotten starships whose remains lay embedded in the ocean floor, quite pathetic

Wondering whether they are being missed by their motherships

Time travelling to a random summer vacation day through tiny water sips

The year was 2002

Had we slept early we'd have been in a better mood

We were on either side of mummy

It was almost too bright, just intolerably sunny

Counting mum, myself and my sibling

A pack of three strolling toward the Shiv ling

So many selective little things continue from one to another

Mothers to daughters were once a daughter to their mother

Saree draping, chapati baking, vernacular speaking

Amongst many, these three I'd like to learn, I'm keeping

And pass on to the next series of future me's

My very own band of bees

Or it is swarm