Pain is such a vague word. A word that contains other words and a ladder of intensity. I however cannot seem to locate where I am on the ladder. Beneath my feet, while holding on the ladder all I see is people that seemed to have lost their hair, with skin stuck to their skull and bones as if it was designed to fit them perfectly there was no loose skin or space for air or most importantly blood to flow. It was as if they had worn death’s cloak and all that separated them from leaving the realm of living is their skinny fingers holding on to the rungs of the ladder waiting to wither away and fall to the infinity and beyond.
My vision was restrained. I couldn’t see past the 4 people above and the 4 beneath me. And my powers grew weaker by the second. I started feeling drops of water falling from above, on the top of my head, it got annoying over time but something about the water didn’t make sense. for it wasn’t water. It was warm and salty. It took hours for me to find out that it was in fact tears. I looked upon the lady whom I was avoiding looking at since she was wearing a dress and I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. The last thing to add to my pain was earning creep as a new title.
I called upon her and asked if she was okay and for the first time I was able to see her face. It was round and red, her features were very hard to distinguish. It was swollen and it didn’t take a scientist’s inellectual capacity to realize that it was due to her continuous crying. She was also holding a picture in her hand, leaving her with just one hand on the ladder, risky I thought to myself. It was a picture of her and a girl with redhead pigtails. She was about 11 or 12 and was wearing a red jumpsuit. She was a beautiful child and it seemed that the mother was grieving the loss of her daughter. A pain that was higher than mine and higher than those whose bodies have been festered with cancer.
11 days went by, my pain grew by the second but my powers are not, the human body cannot last up to that long. But my pain kept me there locked on an infinite ladder with strangers whom the only common thing we have is pain or so it seemed.
I was stuck in a loop of playing what happened 11 days ago when it all went downhill. I didn’t see it coming which caused it to be a shock at the moment but now that I have thought about it it seems like I was blind, that I closed my eyes to the signs, that I walked away from signs that were so clear that I might be blind in another alternative universe.
I failed myself all of the intellectual and social abilities that I claimed to have were never there. I was lying to myself. I was broken and pretended to not be. And for a whole thing to be whole again, it must be broken.
The constant fear that I sugarcoated with happiness and perfection soon broke free and broke me along the way. Ignorance that I claimed to be an act turned out to be my reality. And my glass shield broke and broke with it someone that was so dear.
In pieces, I tried to collect, and on that ladder, I hoped for the best. Only to realize that my shield shouldn’t be pieced back, for it should have never existed in the first place.
On the ladder, 32 days went by. And the loop of my actions in my thoughts was stuck. And with each loop, the same pain took away my soul. For I thought I was a saint and now I’m one phone call away from being an inmate.
Is it fair that I hurt myself, is it fair that I claimed to be what I’m not, or is it just all a lie, an act of deception to fool me out of all of my friends?
On the ladder, I stood hanging too tight. And the lady above fell and wither away, curious I was for she was smiling before disappearing in the darkness of the end. Which made my loop skip a turn. Instead, I thought about the happy smile she displayed.
More people fell and they all left with a smile and I kept wondering about the secret behind it all.
On the ladder of pain, it has been two months and I still cry to sleep every night. New faces are above me and beneath me. And I am standing still. I was on the ladder of pain. Thinking deeply about the secrets of the gold rusted ladder.
And soon it struck me the answer came flooding in. For the people that fell were smiling.
Because this was not a ladder of pain but the ladder of letting go of the past
And I kept holding on tight because I still am not ready to move on. And it’s okay for the ladder will forever exist. And soon I will perish.
