“I’m in pain,” you said.
“I need to crawl back in bed,
need to say it aloud;
name it.”

I, on the other side of a wall.
Never crossed:
the impassable.

There are walls of experience,
between us all.
The roof that keeps out
the rain of others’ pain,
in order that we might be a dry place for them.

Is it not a terrible, and blessed, truth
that on the other side of your seeing there are
gaping wounds;
on the other side of hearing there are
desperate cries;
and on the other side of your feeling there is
pain and cold?