1) sometimes you have to give someone your pain to get theirs let them hold the hurt in their palms, feel it trickle through the fingers like sand, like glass, like something fragile & dangerous. a pebble in the barrel of your best gun.

2) sometimes you have to release hurting to show you can handle another pain, to prove you can catch a tear on the back of your hand, inhale someone's sob as breath. delicately, carefully pry out the poison -- use your teeth if you must but don't by any means swallow.

3) sometimes you have to hold your own sorrow hold back your sorrys and slide, sinuously through pain, sometimes you cry at three am on your own, sometimes you cry every day at three am on your own. first, know your thirst for pain runs deep, deeper than bone, layered.

4) hearing other people's pain and holding their pain close to your own heart is not bad, just hard