Sugarbutch asks “what’s in your box of darkness,” referring to this poem.  I was reminded of this passage from “Musing on Pain, Love, and Others” by Laura-Zoe Humphreys in Bisexual Women in the 21st Century.

Storyteller: Scrape of metal and a rustle as the white curtains close me in with them. One takes my hand in his, rolls the joints, pushes and prods. But my hand fails to speak. It is my turn to perform. “Could you describe to me your pain?” I have spent long, tossing nights preparing for this question. I have taken notes, I have begged my pain to be more clear with me. I have rehearsed my lines well. He nods, says to the others, “She describes it very well. She’s definitely describing joint pain.” I smile, tongue hanging, scratch behind my ear with my foot. Waving his magic pen and his diploma on the wall, he gives me a reference. Disappointed again. I am searching for the name, the word that will take this pain and ball it into a red-wrapped box of solutions, remedies, a course of action. I’m not searching for a Doctor. I’m searching for God.

Pain: Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of pain, I will fear no evil: for though art with me; thy forced smile and thy lab coat they comfort me. Thou preparest my body and my pain as you want them to be; thou anointest my head with drugs, my cup runneth over. Surely pain and desperation shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Doctor for ever.

Stage Notes: The problem is the medical system sees the body as object, as something separate from the self, from the whole person.

Pain: I am not one with this body, this pain taking over. Mind over matter, disassociation from this trap. It’s the only way to survive.

Stage Notes: Work with the pain, not against it. It is you.

Pain: Fuck your New Age holistic spiritualism! Next you’ll be telling me to make friends with my pain. Well I don’t want to take it out for a fucking coffee, fuck!

Stage Notes: Yet what about S/M? Pain is multifaceted, not always aversive but rather sometimes desirable. I’m not saying that a pain that chooses you and one you choose are the same, but could you not learn from this?

Blind Love: Once I asked him not to let me escape and he held me there. Asked him to make me take it and he did. And there was all my guilt and fear and obsessive questioning locked around my wrists and neck if only for a moment, my body tumbled free into feeling.

Storyteller: Sing that sweet sharp edge floating downwards darkly. Weed me stoned and I will fall into you as you rise into me coursing along our bright paths into tips of fingers, the eddy around a knuckle. Crawling into you, you free me. Buried under stones in hidden caves I swim in black pools. White pain glides fanged kisses over my naked skin, slides past my open, waiting lips, twines through me, becomes me.