Monday, August 17, 2009

The Release Of Pain

It all comes down to death. The machine wants to die. The machine wants to sleep and die. A warm sleep with no dreams and a soft pillow that might never be felt. In each release there is an explosion and in each explosion there is a death. The tear, the squirt, the shout, the laugh, the cut. The outward explosion is the death, of a moment, a chamber, an energetic movement. And the machine seeks death. To remain breathing, yet dead, that is an ever-present option. To remain asleep while the eyes are open, while the feet move, while the chest rises and falls.
Look for pain. Pain is my hand in the midst of flickering flames. Pain is hearing a baby screaming. Pain is being ignored. Pain comes with a swiftness that demands attention, it demands acknowledgement in one way or another. Pain requires the shifting of attention from one thing to another. Pain requires that I look at it and talk to it and indulge its wishes. My body begs me to look at its shape. My body wants pain to stop. My mind wants pain to continue. My machine desires the explosion. Pain needs to be hidden in the corner or given a bottle or smoked out of existence. Pain needs to be fed, consuming every thought and action and object in its path.
The body itself will only absorb a certain amount of pain, after that threshold consciousness is lost. It is the reason a baby cries itself to sleep, the reason a cold man would grab a bottle of whiskey or put a gun to his head. In one way or another, pain demands remedy. It demands attention, and the body demands an end. A death to the pain. Ends are found many ways. Pain wants an outlet, it seeks an explosion, an orgasm, there needs to be a resolution. Whether for one moment, or for a lifetime of recurring cycles, pain comes and comes and the body seeks over and over again to let it out in gasps, like a volcano releasing steam. Emotional pain can be covered in the mask of physical pain. A cut might relieve a little sadness. Pain can come little by little, mounting slowly until one day the landscape is a concrete path and a long row of trashcans. And as much as pain seeks a release, the body is addicted to the release itself, so over and over again, it finds reason for pain, creating the circumstances so a release can be had. The eternal cycle of death and sleep. Climb and fall, without any hope of ever reaching the top.

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