This is going to hurt when it’s over
Fire doesn’t hurt instantly, not the very moment it touches your skin. It’s only after a few milliseconds, once your skin cell receptors have time to pass the message on to the wires within your mind that you’re in pain, that you feel the heat of the burn.
I’ve never been stabbed or shot, but I’d imagine that a puncture wound of that degree carries with itself an instantaneous pain. Followed by gushing blood.
Blood is rather pretty. It’s a crimson color, if it’s healthy. Blood is thinner than it looks in action movies. In real life, it’s not a thick, heavy substance. Blood is liquid, like a human elixir spilling from broken veins.
Humans themselves were designed with a specialized innate will to live. You can try to hold your breath until you die, but inevitably you will pass out, and your lungs will start filtering air again.
And so we arrive at the question at hand. If we fear pain so much, because some people pass out at the sight of needles, heights, spiders, or anything with the potential to harm them, why do we continually do things that, while providing temporary pleasure, will eventually hurt?
Is it the adrenaline rush?
The desire to throw oneself up and down and upside down on a rollercoaster just for the high release afterwards?
The curiosity to get that gloriously aesthetic first breath of a cigarette even though we carry the knowledge that quitting will leave us shaking and cold?
The lack of fucks given that allow us to surrender to the sharp ends of heroin or crack, forgetting the warnings of sallow skin, aching organs, and fragile bones that the future now holds?
Is it the ignorant bliss?
The taste of the smooth liquor mixed with the harsh, cold vodka slipping down your throat to ease the pain of yesterday, only to wake up blind and hard-of-hearing the next morning, your once silky throat now scarred and raw from vomit?
The slide of finger to the right, declining the phone call that could very well be your mother’s last, only to enjoy the independence that comes with being an adult, forgetting the regret that will follow if tomorrow holds the worst?
Or perhaps,
Is it the chorus of your favorite song?
The one that tells you that you only have one life to live?
The verse that sings to take risks and chances, because they might pay off?
That person who convinces you that it doesn’t matter if this breaks your heart in the future, because the memories are worth it? Even if they are? Even if the memories alone torture your brain from 2 pm to 2 am?
Even if your heart isn’t broken now because even though you aren’t together, they’re taking liberties? And you aren’t about to stop them?
Even if you and this person continue being “friends” until you leave, what happens when you do leave? When you go off to that college in your dreams thousands of miles away? When you have to move on because it’s all you’ve ever dreamed of, until you met them? When you have to pursue everything that isn’t them? What happens then?
It hurts. Probably. I wouldn’t know.
I’ve never been shot.
I’ve never been stabbed.
I’ve never shot drugs or inhaled smoke down my lungs.
I’ve never even burned myself.
But I have lost people.
And that has hurt.
But I’ve never lost you.
And I can’t imagine that.
