Dreaming of Pain

I'm having a bad day. Which doesn't mean that things are going wrong. It means that I'm going wrong. I'm having a bad day. I don't know whether to scream, or cry, or beat my head against the wall. It's one of those days when I want to hurt myself so that I can feel... feel something other than the horrible, suffocating nothing inside. But it's not an empty nothing, it's a filthy, howling mass of nothing, like the rotting gap where a diseased tooth once sat, like a gunk-encrusted garbage disposal with rusted blades, & it threatens to suck you in & rot you from the inside out. I cannot escape it, so I dream of pain to take me away.

I drive out into the night, trying to find things to distract me. The sugar & caffeine of an iced mocha do not do the trick, & the new books seem but empty promises, certain to disappoint. I step out of the store hoping for a cool breeze to wash over me, to lend me it's cleansing breath, but the air is hot & heavy, like walking through warm syrup, like trying to breathe through wet wool. I feel like I'm suffocating. Bad day.

I dream of pain again, sharp & clean, seeking escape in the thought of stinging strikes against my flesh, or the press of teeth in my skin, hard & harder, bringing a rush of adrenaline & endorphins to fire through my veins like acid, driving out the disease. Pain or passion, I often dream of at times like these. Pain or passion, burning me up from the inside out, burning out the rot & setting me free. For now, though, there is neither, so I suffer, & despair, & continue to dream.