Thank You, Suffering

I remember being beat as a young child, and more vividly I remember crying in my bed at night wondering, "Why does daddy hurt me?"

Days, weeks, months of soul-rupturing affliction. I realized at that age that he is hurting, and so he hurts me.

Eventually, I no longer felt like a human. Only a thing, something liminal and wretched.

Yet in those moments where I truly wished to die, to walk to the bridge and jump into the river so I could drown, it was incredibly ecstatic.

A hand reaching into my soul, rupturing it, only for the soul to reform over the breaking point. Repeat to infinity.

A phoenix from the ashes, except with tattered wings that slightly reconstitute on each resurrection.

Agony, agony; but I was undoubtedly, wildly, unmistakably alive.