Of Pain

I could try using words
To make this fancy. But truth
Is that not even poetry
Alleviates (it) while songs
Are perfectly useless.
This deep ache of something
Going wrong is a sword
In my breath.
This pain is of the heart.
Of loss, absence, rejection
Of slipping away.
Of exactly what, I know not.
I can coat it with mush
And other sweet nothings.
But I prefer the ugliness.
It is what it is -
In its crumpling dismay
And trembling minutiae.
I fear my ears have abandoned
And left - what else
Can explain this struggle?
I fear this pain speaks -
Often rambles away
Bits of soul code.
I see it like one sees
The metaphor of a wound
Struck by a second
Parted in haste.
Were the sutures ever there?
What will it take to heal?
Can't be laughter or some bold sashay.
I'm sure there was a time
When this place was earth itself -
Fragrant, rain-soaked, whole
Ready for child's play.
This very place, that today
Runs like a waterless stretch
Halving my heart
In a nameless disarray.
Words now coalesce -
Faint feathers falling back
Into the bird's nest.
I hear my own pulse -
A hotbed of torrid affairs.
Nick the pain, some say
Discover a water bed right beneath.
Full of qi, congealed and gay.
Concept, the mind rings -
Concept can wait for another day.
But this pain?
There's nothing I would do
Than live with it.