I read your words and there is a rising keening in my heart, a sharp pain, a loud wailing... but this time for the living... for us who are tormented. And in all of us, those who have never written here, those who have seldom written here, those of us who write and write and write because "here" for us has become this virtual world, this "unreal" haven, in all of us lost except for *here* souls, there rises the many notes that make up our shared song of pain. And in the strange way that is difficult, if not impossible, to explain... it happens again; pain when it is pain that is shared is pain somehow made more tolerable.

My pain is seldom lessened by the words of others, in fact it is often increased, but if I can know that there are are others who feel this pain, know this pain, *are this pain* then I can sing this pain in my heart with them knowing that I am not alone.

You are not alone. You are pain. We are pain. We are ash. Although our individual voices rise and fall, come and go, we echo through the darkness like the howling of wolves in the distance... we are *here*. We are here for ourselves but also for each other because it is only we who can understand us; therefore, it is only we who can comfort us as we stand on the threshold between life and death.

-Sylvia Owl
Last update: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 23:40