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Spadina Literary Review  —  edition 36 page 12

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Pain + Love – Pain + Love

by Cory McRae

Get in loser,
We’re healing trauma.
Breaking up symphonies of intergenerational trauma and writing new histories!
I am mighty and you are capable,
And everything is up for grabs!
Let’s ditch this path of pain,
And walk a path of love.
Tear apart old parking tickets — written damnations on your soul and toxic plights upon your psyche!
We’re better than that.
A tale of alcoholism and hurt and feelings three generations old is being broken.
The story is being erased with a sloppy white eraser, and rewritten in golden ink!
We can know what it is like to be loved.
We can know what it is like to love others.
We are not what anxiety made us into.
We are not broken!
And I can look you in the eye.
And I can tell you that I am worthy of love.
And I can tell you that you are worthy of love.
And when cowards run, let them!
Get in, lover,
We’re rewriting the histories written on our flesh in blood and tattoo ink.
We’re undoing centuries of sorrow.
Everything is up for grabs.
A new hope.
A new future.
Pain + love - pain + love.
It’s the new way of thinking.
Get in.