Listen to Melissa Frederick read “The Questions.”
What is pain but a question
and an answer?
I ask, do you hurt?
You tell me,
the days and nights smear
together in a wet clump.
Time decomposes
to cause and effect:
if morning → wash
if lunchtime →chew
if seated → rise
and beneath every action
a murmur of distress,
a pang,
a trouble,
a scream,
a secret, relentless algorithm
punishing nothing,
broken at random.… Read more ““The Questions” by Melissa Frederick”