PAIN
The ignorant
believe pain is terminal,
an end-all-be-all affliction
that is dark and infernal,
and they all clutch desperately onto
an illusory notion of “happiness.”
The experienced
know pain to be a part of life,
something that, in time,
we recover from,
and they all hope to have the strength to heal.
But I know that
pain is metamorphic,
an ever-changing manifestation
of all of life’s struggles.
We never recover from it,
and it never disappears.
It merely retreats into the hollows of our partial souls
until the time comes when
it hits us with the force
of ten thousand bullets,
and we are left to wonder
how we ever got it to shrink like a snake into a clay pot
back inside us in the first place.
—from 2016 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
__________
Why do you like to write poetry?
Molly Schramm: “I like writing poetry because when I do, I feel like I’m Michelangelo discovering the David inside of a block of marble. I always surprise myself with what I write, and not knowing what I’ll write next is all just part of the fun. Sometimes it’s dark and sad. Other times it’s silly and cheerful. But the one constant in my poetry is that it is all 100% uninhibited me. I don’t have to hide or feel ashamed of myself. There are no rules or limitations. I can just be me.”