If words are dead ends, then metaphors are doors that I can try to open up. When you compare pain to another thing, those that are listening can fill in the abstraction with their own interpretations. My friend’s pain was a bowling ball and mine is something like a tarantula who’s using my body as her nest. I can feel her pulling up my oesophagus, the lump of her body balancing at the edge of my throat. I swallow her down, but eight legs means she works her way back up again quickly. Fighting the pain is tiring, so eventually I fall asleep and when I wake up there are a few delicious seconds
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