Pain Body

Pain, I see you
Wrapped inside my body
Like a weeping willow 
Whose roots weave and wrap 
Deeply around the soil that grounds it

Pain, I see you withered and small
Sad and lonely, dark and shrunken
Inside my thorax

Always there but never seen
Like a plume of smoke
Hidden in ribs and sinew
Buried in heart and lung
Marbled through intestines
Bones and tissues

I see you and hear you
The years of sadness
The moments of desperation
Locked away in this cage

Screaming silently to be let out
Invisible to all
Felt by one
There but not there
An enigma

I see your face
Turned away in shame
The hurt etched through you
The longing for sunlight 
To cleanse you 
From my physical form

I hear your cries
Of past trauma
Layered upon layer
Inert, absent the energy
To escape from here

I see you but I don’t judge you
You took form for a purpose
To protect me from some 
Future undefined horror

I thank you, and say it’s ok now
I thank you, and say be free now

I am me and you are you
And we can each be free 
When we aren’t woven together like this