pain

[…] I’m pointing to my heart because its beats are out of sync constantly, because the blood it pumps rushes to my brain as though fierce tidal waves reach the surface of my skull without any sand in the way to break their force, because these tidal waves never reach shore, because my heart beats as though it is running incessantly, running from the pain and worries of all that has occurred, and can occur, because my pain extends to my whole self, and sometimes it takes over, like a cape whose super power I wish was to render me invisible forever. And so, I feel like my heart is in my throat, and I am having trouble speaking, I am having trouble breathing. […] I speak in metaphors and images because this is how I journey through my pain.  I speak in fantasies because this is how I transform that magical cape into the superpower of creativity, because this is how I thrive in the cortex of my breathing…”

-farha najah, an excerpt from “pain,” in the zine To Begin. Again.