What She Likes About Pain Is That... Poem by RIC BASTASA

what she likes about the queen of pain is that...
she has more things to show that makes us more
real, something that is touchable
not just another kind of colored imagination
like rainbows and auroras that the king of happiness own.

the more she sheds tears the more the lands become
more visible to the toes and the feet confront themselves
with rocks and pebbles.

for after all counted from the very moment she had first seen
light,
her hands already felt the coldness of the floors
the ticks, the prick of the thorns of her hairs
all over her body

then one day, after day one, till kingdom come,
she becomes the princess of pain herself
worshiped by many
liked by most

an icon, candles are lighted in her honor
the day when she died.