To Live is To Suffer

I think I have a bit of a problem. I like pain. No, I'm lying. I love pain. I am in love with pain, or maybe I was. I think I’ve gone a little too far in my search for my agonal enlightenment. My personal philosophy is that you truly grow only thanks to pain and suffering. I think I became my own person, truly, only after my parents died. It was a car accident; I don’t remember much. I was maybe six… I don’t remember. I was there, I remember dozing off – it was a cold night and there was rain. One moment there was nothing but an empty road ahead, the next I saw a flashing light and felt my world rotating violently. Everything shook and then there was pain.

The back of my head was throbbing, my ears rang, and my vision was blurry. It hurt, but I couldn’t cry. My parents were motionless, dad’s vacant eyes stared at me through a liquid crimson. My mind was blank, I remember barely crawling out off the crumpled sardine can that was my parents’ car just moments before. My head pounded like a gong and with each aftershock of pain came a sweet sweet wave of pleasure. I remember myself laughing before I passed out.

Sometime later I ended up living with my grandmother, she was trying to be awful. She’d starve me, insult me, and beat me. Oh, I remember those beatings fondly. With each blow came a sweet adrenal wave of bliss. She hated the way I smiled at her after each blow and tried striking me harder, forcing a wider smile upon my face. She would only stop after I would have passed out or started moaning. She’d recoil back in horror every time this happened, assuming she had gone too far and retreated into another room. Grandma would come to my room later to apologize, I never understood why she apologized, I had the best time when she was smacking the ever-living hell out of my pale white bare skin. After each apology, she’d recoil in disgust away from me, and retreat until her next time her demons took over her psyche.

She suffered a heart attack after one of those beatings when I was seventeen and died shortly after. I was so angry she just collapsed in the middle of my bonding time with her. I shook her motionless body, yelling at her to wake up and resume her display of violence against me. I was so mad at her for robbing my pleasure away from me that I slammed my head against the wall repeatedly, not even registering the blissful sensation of my skull being bashed against the concrete until I concussed myself.

Couldn’t do much for the next month and a half, couldn’t even get grandma’s rotting corpse out of the house. Her smell was bad, but it wasn’t unbearable.

During that time, I learned how to dislocate my fingers, and boy, oh boy, that sharp pain of a bone bending out of place is just orgasmic. I knew I had to start living on my own, which meant I couldn’t hurt myself too much. I had to be able to put bread on my table. So, I found a job and did that for a while. Life was monotonous and joyless, for the most part. I felt like I was a passenger in my own body. The only thing keeping me alive and somewhat sane was the short bursts of orgasmic joy whenever I yanked a finger out of its place.

I even met a girl who didn’t judge me for my love of pain. She was fine with hitting me and biting, we slowly progressed further, I’d ask her to burn me with her cigarettes, at first, she hesitated but when I forced her hand and she saw the way I melted she gave in. Then came the whips and the razors… Ah, good times. The sex part wasn’t even that fun… It has been just like the rest of the things in my life, monotonous, gray, boring, void of feeling. Just a sensation of friction… Ehh…

Unfortunately, we didn’t last. She refused to lodge a knife into my shoulder. I was persistent and eventually, she relented. However, she was unable to do it at the last moment, and I was forced to force her hands in. The knife ended up penetrating me just below my collarbone. I moaned as I had never moaned before, crumbling to my knees and weeping with pleasure. It was one of the best moments of my life. Sadly, I was alone in that room. She couldn’t handle my taste for pain.

I ended up castrating myself the following day, burnt off my testes. Laughed like a hyena the whole time, it felt like I was being repeatedly punched in the liver on top of my flash stinging and burning. That was definitely my best experience. I did this because I didn’t need it… Sex isn’t really that great. I could still take a piss, though now it was actually pleasurable. A stinging sensation came every time the urine poured out, sometimes with a bit of blood. Not that I was ever concerned about bleeding a bit.

Anyhow, I think I’ve gone a little too far. For a while, I’ve been wondering just how good would it feel if I jumped off my roof.

Obviously, I’m not one who’s trying to die. I liked living, but I have one essential need others don’t. I need to feel that nervous burning sensation coursing through my body. So, I’ve made it as safe as I could while making sure I’ll hurt. I made sure to tuck my head really well, so I don’t slam it into the ground and kill myself. It didn’t work out too well. In fact, I let myself fall off the edge of the roof, back first. I landed with a soft thud and there was a bit of a pain in my back, but then everything disappeared.

For the first time, I felt afraid. I was scared because I couldn’t feel any pain. I couldn’t feel anything. I had no words; I couldn’t even utter a sound. I just lied there, trying my hardest to find my legs. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t feel a damned thing below the middle of my back. Nothing, absolutely nothing.

I felt the tears running down my face, though.

Now I’m in the hospital, paralyzed below the belt, and for the first time, I’m not sure if I want to live anymore. To live is to suffer, and if I cannot feel anything, I cannot suffer. If I cannot suffer, then it’s not worth it.