Attention Not Experience

He rests his head on a pillow of tattered towels,
broken-down and rusting on a backstreet.
Taken by surprise, he ran out of everything,

a first-class nightmare coming true.
He leans back, closes his eyes, and wonders
how much more he can bear, new to this quiet desperation.

It stabs, burns, aches and throbs, gnaws at you,
knocks you for a loop. But, sooner or later
it all goes away. Unless, he's been told, it doesn't.

-- Scott H. Stoller

Desperate times
When pain becomes chronic
Death at Electric Daisy Carnival