I use to think that smokers where just careless people who did not like their lives even after knowing and seeing the boldly written words of smokers are liable to die young. I was a fool to think that a man who was ready to move the world for the woman he loved was a simp and a woman wrapper as fondly said in my country. I laugh at myself now because I would judge and raise eyebrow and even bat my eyelashes when I saw youngsters and even old men and women sniff coke that gave joy for a minute.
I would try to imagine how a young beautiful girl full of life would slit her wrists, take poisonous substances just because she was abandoned by a male prospective. I used to think I was immune to pain until I came home with a smiling face and ended going to bed with tears in my eye and my pillow soaked, then I could not comprehend fully the meaning of pain. Was it the stinging feeling left after the syringe goes into your veins?
Was it that crack you feel when yours bones shift or hit an object?Is it the loud cry of a mother in labor, writhing and gnashing her teeth?
Or the loud shout of help by that young girl and boy who is molested and harassed by that same person who swore to protect them?
Or the smile hiding the tears of that young man who has had to be strong all his life because, by matter of him being a man, being strong was all he knew?
Or the persistent lash out by the young girl who was classified as being bitter and emotional but was never given the opportunity to express herself?
Or the parents who was always critised by the children, the society and nature at large whos only crime was trying to do what they thought was right for their children and refused to compromise no matter what?
Pain is to different individual, color, tribe and region meant some many things. To many it meant the ending of the world, to some it meant the tears and blood, to some it was a hard-constricting feeling that has you held down and the only way you would be free was screaming, to some it meant being quiet and isolated themselves from their world And as such they wanted to stop the pain, they would prefer to take that 5 minutes or seconds of joy.
You would see the dead smile in their eye after that puff of smoke, You would see that grin as they slit their wrists and welcomed death, You would see the joy in their expression as they moved the world for the woman they loved because they could not love themselves no matter what.
What is Pain to you?