Oh, constant, unending Pain, my surest, truest friend. Agony, blessed Agony, your ever-present ache identifies unyielding vitality. That sharply labored breath is respiration (fully) experienced. Those overwhelming burdens grant me immune to senseless distraction, grounding me in the present. Oh, merciless teacher. Spread your harshest wounds across the soil of my figure. Find root in my skin and nerves and veins. Killing fields to blanket and smother withering pleasure that waxes and wanes. Thine are the lidless eyes of night that stare upon my tears. Thine is the thickness of the dark that presses in my anguish. Rejoice in the miseries of life unkind. Here, and only here, are the senses stretched and contracted, hone them to their prime strength, to primal vigor. Seek comfort in endurance. Be consumed by struggle. Lasting wisdom only exists in the abandoned fields, in the dusty swamp, on the burnt out plains, on the desolate hillside