226/365 04/05/2026

To live in pain is to live partially inside yourself, always. To mask and smile and say, “Fine, thank you,” while a piece of you works to inventory each sensation. The dull throb like a too-big heart beating in your hip. The threat of a hot, sharp stab if you move a certain way. The way your leg might feel for a brief moment, detached and floating away from your body, the absence of sensation signaling the arrival of a new sensation where bone grinds bone, which clamps your teeth together and sends a sickening scrape through your very center. 

There is nothing like pain to make you aware of yourself in space, as a body, both inside and out.