He's in pain. I am, too. It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain we feel.

It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain to feel.

I want to reach out and grab his hand and hold it to me, right over my heart, right where it aches the most. I don't know if doing that would heal me or make my heart break entirely, but either way this constant hungry waiting would be over.

I draw in a ragged breath, the kind you take when the pain is too deep to cry, when you can't cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist.

And I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live.

The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.

...I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live.

Forgetting lets you live without the pain for a moment but remembering hits hard.