Dear Wilson,
The thing with pain is that you can't describe it without metaphors: it feels like my leg is on fire; it feels like someone is twisting a knife in my flesh; it feels like a dog has bitten into it and is ripping it out. No one can describe the pain itself, it always feels like something else. Pain is intrinsically incommunicable without borrowing the outside world.
The thing with pain is that you can't share it with someone else. I can tell you everything about the pain, the flame, the anguish and the frustration, and you still won't understand no matter how hard you try. You won't feel the intensity of the throbbing and the depth of the ache, just like you won't feel the anger from the throbbing and the despair from the ache. Pain isolates you onto an island without a way out.
The thing with pain is that it becomes a part of you. You forget what life was like without pain. You forget who you were before pain. At some point in time, you and pain become one. Like parasites, one can't live without the other. You get used to the constant ache that has accompanied you for most of your life and will accompany you for the rest of your life, only to be awakened from this drug-induced dream when you briefly remember the past, when you are reminded of all the things you are missing out from life––
Is there a life anymore? Can we call this monotonous waking and sleeping life? Wilson, I'm not trying to be cynical, but what is this thing other than a series of nightmares embodied in a mirage? Sometimes I wonder why I'm still here, other times I lose the ability to wonder because all I can do is scream.
There are a few ways to relieve pain, none of which you approve of. But pain does not seek permission. It comes as a burglar in the night and robs you of your dignity until you can bear no more. So if it wants blood, let there be blood. The first cut each time is always the hardest, but also the most rewarding. You insert the blade into the skin, much like the skin of a grape, and you can almost hear it pop joyously. You drag it downward with the weight of your hand, neither too fast nor too slow. If you pull too fast, you lose control; if too slow, your skin would resist with force. So you pull carefully, watching it ripen under your eyes, watching the crimson juice imprisoned in your body flow outwards, towards freedom, until they inevitably get pulled downwards by gravity. You close your eyes and let out a sigh. Cutting releases endorphins, endorphins relieve pain. The buzzing of your wound distracts from the yearning of your leg. In this climax of agony, you can finally relax into oblivion.
-H