The Pain

a new poem from Karan Kapoor for Little Blanksgiving, day two

It’s day two of Little Blanksgiving, our week of fiction, poetry, and essays co-published with Blank, a Dirtyverse newsletter about books and the culture around them. Today we’ve got a new poem from Karan Kapoor, no stranger to Little Engines.

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THE PAIN

by Karan Kapoor

We were running after pleasure, we only got the pain;
our dogs were barking, we sighed: oh, no, not the pain.

Our dreams sieged us, shook us out of sleep —
can you imagine a wound from a gunshot, the pain?

Our stomachs growled, waiting for joy we rapped
our nails on the table, the waiter brought the pain.

Yes, there was hunger on our faces, but
what made you think we sought the pain?

The wait was over, we were told. We were full
of holes and it was cheap, we bought the pain.

It was, like all else, a matter of fortitude. Hurt us,
that’s alright, but not a lot, we taught the pain.

Father, free us of want, lead us to will —
our prayer unheard, we fought the pain.

There is distance between love and loss, but little.
It clung to us like a curse we’d caught — the pain.

You lied through your teeth: Karan, it’ll all be gone one day.
Though it left us eventually, we never forgot the pain.

KARAN KAPOOR is a poet & writer of absurdities and the Editor-in-Chief of ONLY POEMS.

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