my moments are filled with pain,
pain that drew full attention to my face,
eyes, eyebrow, and forehead,
strain that didn’t reset when I woke up the next day,
days in a row of suffering,
on the cusp of uncomfortable dryness.

The hurt of my eyes and forehead
are a close and sturdy memory,
I am afraid of an encore.
I face an electric fence and wishes won’t disarm it.
Wishes won’t unlink cause and effect,
each action an interlocking link,
solidifying the outcome day after day.

Enduring pain is not a swap I can make
to return to my past comforts—
reading thousands of words of fanfiction,
reveling in the emotions and toils of the stories and characters,
more comforting than hugging a fluffy stuffed animal
or drinking warm soup
or inviting the silence of an empty room into my mind—
so I look back at my past self,
rush of water and cricket chirps in my ears,
across a rocky river, too dangerous to cross.