Threshold - Pankhuri Singh

Threshold 

There’s a kind of pain that feels almost divine,

like a hum of thunder shaking down the spine.

It hurts, but it hums—

It makes you feel real,

a heavy anchor reminding you that you still feel.

I held it close, like a fragile truth,

a badge of depth, a badge of youth.

But the thing with ache is,

it doesn't ask—

It slips past meaning and becomes a mask.

Pain has a voice that’s dark and sweet;

It teaches stillness, commands retreat.

It sharpens the soul, it thickens the air,

offering a silence that others won’t share.

I thought it was noble to carry the weight,

to sit in the dark and call it fate.

I thought if I bled in beautiful prose,

I’d bloom from the ruin as the story goes.

But no one tells you that silence rots,

that some wounds aren’t wise.

That carrying pain is not always brave—

Sometimes it’s just the mask the martyrs crave.

Because pain, when fed, forgets it must leave;

It grows like ivy and learns to deceive.

Wear it too long, it stitches the soul with a jagged seam,

and buries the self you once dreamed of.

Eventually,

It stops being your fire

and turns into a fog,

proving you’re not in a poem—you’re lost in a bog.

And strength starts to taste a lot like decay,

while healing postpones day after day.

So one quiet night, I let it go.

Not with a scream, just a gentle no.

Not with a storm, not with regret,

just a truth I was too tired to forget.

I didn’t rise, as the poets preach;

I simply stepped beyond the wound's reach.

I walked away from the fight,

into the self that lives in the light.