The Twisted Growth Of Things

The permanence of pain

there was a kind of destructive and constructive pain that ran through the heart of things

you could see it in the way certain trees and vines grew so tortured and twisted, refusing to crack and yield to the earth’s pressure below

you could hear it in the drilling of cement, in the bombs on the evening news, in the birth cries at the hospital, in the rumbling of your digestive system

an agitation, an uninterrupted stress

did it ever sleep?

you could hear the deep plates slowly grind underground in the middle of the night, beneath the city streets

industrial scars and fault lines

as your insomniac heart fought to keep beating

your deep breathing pushing like waves against your chest

your thoughts, fears, regrets, angers — all of it beat with volcanic life

your unfinished business quietly raged and simmered at a steady boil

and as you lay there awake again at 3am you were struck with a sobering thought —

why would death be an exception?

you weren’t buying the consoling myth of deep sleep, a sudden blank check of painless peace

you knew the beating, the pulsing, the slow regular boiling would likely continue

the striving, the chasing after dreams, the wandering

how could it not?

nothing in this world is without motion and stress

nothing has ever ceased for millions of years

and you were certain there was no final cord, vein, nerve, or pulse death could fully eliminate

and, in your heart of hearts, you couldn’t honestly say whether this stone cold probability was something to rejoice or grieve for

© Carlo Zeno 2023

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Thanks for reading, and thank you to the team at Blue Insights. Here are two recent poems of mine below 🙏