there was a time when suffering still felt like proof that i belonged to the world. pain was at least a conversation — a crude one, but unmistakably directed at me. to be wounded was to be addressed.
now even that privilege seems withdrawn. existence has grown indifferent to my presence. it no longer bothers to disturb me with torment, as though it has quietly concluded that i am not worth the effort.
perhaps this is the true demotion in living: not despair, but the moment beyond it, where even anguish loses interest. pain once proved that life still had a use for me. now it passes by without recognition, like a stranger who does not remember ever having known you.
i begin to suspect that suffering itself is a form of grace — the last acknowledgment that one still occupies a place in the order of things. when even misery abandons you, you discover the gravest poverty: to exist without consequence, without disturbance, without being worth the cruelty of the universe.
first life wounds you. then it forgets you. the second is harder to endure.
