When Pain Tastes Sweet Poem by el marandhie

I laughed when it hurt,
not because it didn't
but because if I cried
you might've seen me break.

So I built a little mask,
stitched with sarcasm and smirks,
and wore it like armor
every time love turned sharp.

They never noticed
how pain became familiar
like the taste of metal in my mouth,
or the weight of silence on my tongue.

I called it sweet,
not because I liked it,
but because it was mine….
The only thing that stayed.

There are days my heart takes longer to react.
My brain sips the betrayal in slow motion
like it's saving it for later,
when no one's watching.

I've learned to protect myself
with numbness.
With laughter.
With pretending.

But none of that means I'm unwell.
It means I survived.
It means my soul wrote
its own emergency plan
when no one else came to help.

So if you see me laughing
when I should be crying,
know this:
It's not madness.
It's memory.
It's muscle.
It's me… still here.

And that… is proof I've always been stronger
than anyone ever gave me credit for.

-eL