How Pain Manifests Itself
By Arao Ameny
Pain manifests itself in different ways.
Some of us women eat our pain, swallowing our tears and filling our stomachs with food until we’re numb. Some of us allow different men to plough into us over and over again until we become empty bodies drained of a spirit, rotting from the inside out. Some of us sleep for three straight days without drawing the curtains, shunning sunlight from our skins and retreating into dimly lit rooms to smother ourselves with heavy, scentless blankets. Some of us hurt others to mask the pain, cursing anyone or anything that reflects our flaws or drives nails into the cracks—those fragile parts of us — those pieces we’re left to hold once everything and everyone we once thought was ours abandons us or ceases to exist.
Pain manifests itself in different ways. Some of us write until our fingers ache, until there are no more words left to squeeze out of the emptiness of the room of our minds. Some of us smile until our cheeks rise so high they have nowhere to go but stand still on our faces.
We’re all in pain, some of us more than others.
Some long-term. Some short-term.
We just manage. I manage. You manage.
Some of us lie that we’re not in pain. Some of us deny, deny, deny. Then we curse that pain. We beat it lifeless with empty words. Then we speak to that pain.
We write that pain down.
And then it becomes nothing.
And then we heal.