When the initial blow came it
fell as a slashing blade,cutting
from breast to navel, then
stabbing deep within, twisting cruelly.

The pain overtook all elements of being
no strength left for anything
except pure suffering, none else
but total surrender to the experience.

Death, ah death, the ultimate
enduring fear, avoided and denied
Now dear death, you could do
me great service in this my desperation.

I beseech and I beg, writhing in the dust
The overwhelming torture too much to bear
There is only one clear, persistant thought
the need, the frantic need, to make the pain stop.

Such a possibility seems remote while life
stubbornly clings to this crippled being
How ridiculous that a shattered broken heart
continues to beat and sustain such nightmare.

Time heals all, is a trite cliche
offered with blase indifference
bordering on cruelty, insensitivity
Pain knows no future, only reality.

A broken heart can never mend
will not return to its undamaged state
Beat on it will, bitter with the stab
sharp and cruel that marks each pulse.

Yet the rythmic continuance of life
dulls the cruelty of the tortured wound
But each tentative probe, exploratory
or co-incidental, inflames the festering sore.

The knowledge eventually pervades the being
there is no release, no end, no escape
This is for life, it remains within
the only hope is to learn....to live with it.

Anji Alexander 15/11/2003