did you know it is impossible,
to hold on to pain?
because suffering isn't real
it slips and slids away from the edges of your eyes
later, it's nothing but a dream

but the meaning of it,
the why, you wanted to keep.
and that isn't even yours.

hurt lands on your shoulder to rest and to rearrange
an errant feather
you pluck agony out carefully, only to have it grow
back thicker next time
sometimes pain just falls out of a hole in your
body, one day someone
catches it
and wraps it in a blanket
one day it just spirals slowly down the drain.

Perhaps the first taste of ache is not a dream
right before your brain sticks it's fingers in it's
ears,
right before it turns on the fog and bubble
machines.
right before what you remember of pain is
something else.

and it's not hard to remember the way you howlwhined
rocking naked on your hands and knees
hating the old midwife who whispered hush and pulled
the sheet over you
again
and again
but wishing to be done.
(to say)
GoodnightstarsGoodnightairGoodnightnoises
to all of them
but it was only a dream.
about flying.

Jessica Lund is a writer in Portland Oregon with two kids, six and eight. She writes for everything from tattoos zines to glossy adventure mags, from fashion and teen culture to politics and advice.