By Paul Hostovsky
When I don’t feel well I watch movies
about suffering. The Holocaust, the Middle Passage,
the Killing Fields. Any unimaginable
true story about people made to feel
worse than I feel now will do. There is no
lack of suffering. Why that helps me feel
better I don’t know. It helps me feel awful
better, if that makes any sense. Trying to make sense
of suffering only leads to more suffering--one can only
weep. To make himself weep, a movie actor
bites down hard on the inside of his cheek
till he tastes the rolling boil of his own blood
mix with the imagined pain. This usually does
the trick and the world gets desolate fast.
And cold. So cold it makes you shiver. So fast
it makes you weep. And you reach for a tissue,
and you feel better. You feel awful, better.
(Paul Hostovsky’s latest book of poems is Mostly (FutureCycle Press, 2021). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Website: paulhostovsky.com)
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