Since the day I stood over my brother’s body, awash with
wonder and grief, I have marveled at the power of pain. Physical pain…intense
physical pain can rearrange a person’s psyche like you wouldn’t believe. And I
have known physical pain. I have known it in ways that even the most skilled
wordsmith could not do any justice to. Emotional pain however, deep,
all-encompassing emotional pain…now that is something to behold.
It is no secret that the year thus far has been wrought with
trials and tragedies. Myself and people all around me have been suffering in a
variety of ways. It has taken me closer to the edge of my limits than I had ever
thought possible. Every time I seem to be turning a corner, following a promise
uttered or a spark of light, I am met with that shadowy despair once again. Its
insanity clutches at me and I feel myself clawing against rage and
hopelessness. So on evenings like this, when my cheeks have felt like flowing
liquid to the touch and my brow has been creased with all the tension of the
strongest vice until a friend rescues me with coffee and a forbidden cigarette
to bring me back into myself, I can take a step back for just a moment. I can
look. I can become the scientist.
I am a great scientist when studying my own emotional pain
and mental torment. Even as it agonizingly rips apart my insides, I am
fascinated. The madness and sheer enormity of it are breathtaking in a way that
is almost art. I am surviving this and I have been surviving it for months on
end. But is there an end? Logic dictates that there must be but the when and
how are lost to me at this time. I am putting on my mad scientist coat and I am
dusting off my beakers and boilers to see what this beast can do; to see the
colors it paints within me. And oh how sometimes I shake! Isn’t it marvelous
what this thing can do? Isn’t it poetry? Will it kill me? No, though I am sure
it has tried. No, it will not kill me. It can’t kill me if I’m cutting it to
pieces and dissecting its every corner and shape. It can’t kill me even when it
has me tricked into feeling like I’m dying. For you see, I am the mad scientist,
and I run this show…even when it’s running away with me.
