Agony’s End

it ends

It begins

it closed

It opened

Wound opened, wound closed.

Breathe, in, breathe, out.

It tears, it breaks; it’s okay, it’s not.

You are noticed, you aren’t noticed.

You break, you get up.

It is a sound, it is silence.

It’s black, it’s white.

It’s a virgin, it’s a whore.

You’re bad/you’re good.

You leap/you collapse.

It’s starving/it’s full.

Agony lends itself much to our limited perspective, it gives us the power to see our own place in

The grand scale of humanity.

They say pain is weakness leaving the body.

But agony is not pain.

It’s like a person you have lived with for so long, lurking behind you,

More than a shadow,

Sitting next to you in church,(bar, school, work, park)

In your words

Your laugh

Your smile

Your tears in your locked bathroom

Your voice inside your head

The way you walk

The way you make someone feel better

The way you tear someone down

The way you laugh at an unfunny joke

And then laugh out loud later because something came up that

Was your sense of humor,

The way you

Just aren’t you anymore.

And the person you’ve live with so long,

That sounds like you

And runs and walks and washes the dishes,

Melds and cracks and repels,

Because finally letting in that bit of healing will expose

All of it

And you can’t let that happen,

So it drains, little by little

Beginning, ending.

Agony is not pain.

Agony is pain.

It’s the process of Hope,

And the process of Fear.

So, let me hold your hand

And we will see this through,

A beautiful, winding, dichotomous

Story—

One that dares to write an ending that continues,

And opens up everything entirely,

To master the strain of Agony’s conflicting

Rip of opening

And closing.