The Epiphany

While I was pregnant with my pain, I went to my lover and asked her to be my midwife, the first to meet and touch my pain. But she refused, saying that I should abort my pain or else she would find another lover.

But my pain was gestating in the womb of life's experience, which never failed to give birth in due season. So I counted my lover among my many losses and continued my search for a midwife to help me deliver my pain.

I went to the holy places where men offered prayers and seek kindness from the gods. But they turned me away while casting judgment upon me, saying that my pain was illegitimate, the offspring of my sin and worldly lust.

When the water of my tears broke and I was giving birth to my pain, loneliness was my midwife.

When my pain was born no one wanted to touch it or to see its face. Yet everywhere I went people whispered among themselves, Saying "What a cursed man to give birth to such an ugly thing."

Feeling ashamed of the unwelcoming features of my pain, I went to live on the outskirts of society, away from human eyes.

One day, while I was walking by a cemetery, I heard the dead whispering amongst themselves, "What a blessed man to be able to feel life's pain."

One of the dead tried to touch my pain while another tried to wrestle my pain away from me. But like a protective mother, I hugged my pain tightly to my chest and hurried away.

This is when I had the epiphany, that seasonal pain is one of the vital signs of life, for when there are no more signs of pain there will be no more signs of life.