The Stain of Pain is Gain by Sarah Jeanne Browne
Pain is the stain of your name
Tattooed on my heart
The only voice in my brain
The only indication that you remain
The one tear in the rain
You grab my heart anyway
Even if I try to run away
Grief itself sits with me and says
“Stay. You are not to blame. Stay.”
And yet I feel like it is my fault
So I drop the world from my shoulders
As you lift me up
“I’ll never leave you again.”
As if death was something made up
Then I say “No, you have to move on.”
But the breeze reaches my heart
“They’re already gone.”
“Then why did I just have this conversation?”
“Because you are not. You are meant to live. Let life unfold as it does.”
“How can life go on without them?”
“You said it yourself - they’re your pain, brain, tear and heart. You have them.” “How can I then go on?”
“That’s what makes you human.”
“What?”
“That you think you missed a spot. You jump over meaning. You cross every T and dot every I. But there’s nothing you can do but say goodbye. There’s a DOT DOT DOT...to find your own reason why they are now the brightest star in your very own sky.”
“Goodbye,” I said. Then the breeze left me too
Yet I fell asleep in your arms
Like I used to do
The breeze went right on through
To carry us to the sea
As we looked out to the water
You said your last words to me
“I’m in everything you think, feel, touch, know and see. Your senses are divine. All you needed to do was meet mine.”
“But I cannot feel you yet.”
I tried to touch their hand. But it was an empty grasp
A longing that would never pass
Until I sat with the emptiness for a solid minute
Dipped my toes into the cold tide that tempted me to ride
And rise and fall into it like I do in my life
I see that those who pass never truly go
There’s just a little window to the soul
You open and climb out like it’s revenge
Like a runaway kid
Only to leave your scent and kiss despite ashes scattered to the wind
“Take me there, sometime.” I ask. But it’s silence now Which strangely removed all doubt
You’d never pout
Yet it is a common feature for those in fear
Grief is our greatest teacher that those who are gone are near
So I make a promise to myself:
I would let you steer my soul; find grief’s gold; and let go of my goals so I would really know how to reap what I sowed...never taking advantage. Just letting the rain touch my skin. For each loss there is a soul ready to begin.
This time it’s mine.
About
Sarah Jeanne Browne is a wisdom collector who assisted Tiny Buddha with such projects and then formed her own philosophy; writer for Forbes and other popular self-help sites (and now deconstructs self-help as the industry can be misleading); speaker for organizations such as The Peal Center, Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network, The Woodlands Foundation, Reimagine, various podcasts and more; activist for human and animal rights; innovator and problem solver such as creating a way to connect with kids for EndCAN - LOVES: Listen, Open Up, Validate, Explain, and Solve Together; brand and social media consultant; and lived experience speaker and writer with bipolar, dyscalculia, and AuDHD.
