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Already there or otherwise?

By Ryan Chan

27 Apr 2026 12:34 AM

You need to allow yourself to be
vulnerable—
hurt in uncountable ways
spaces
and orientations
to be fully alive
to feel fully alive?

To allow ourselves to be
susceptible to collapse
to be more
awakened
from the resting
and sleep
of being otherwise

Otherwise
that unsettling
comfortable of being
alone
with our worries

in allaying our
heart-fullness
by the tunes
of fear

unrealizing
our fear
is sacred,
pain included,
as our joys, sorrows,
grief, and rage
are never sold
separately

They dually dance
as flamenco

as there is this
other wise
choice
this choice
being
shattering the peace
of violence,
the violence of
silence

that appears
to be healthy
yet only screams
the wailing cries of pain
when disturbed by
hurricanes of
our
self-torment
not only self-imposed but
mutual hurting
as we stop
communicating
in our silent need
for
communication

For connection under
our stiff-lipped
impartiality

As when we wise
the other
there is such
an aliveness
as we learn
to be
interdependent

this separate unity
of a community
building immunity

immunity that
never divides
cells us-and-them

but that disables
cells
as we know ourselves
to be ourselves

as we see
our cells
not as cell
but as trellises
overzealous
to connect
rather than
diverge

So why do we let
the other wise—
unwise in
belonging formed
upon division
create gates
of confusion

for our body
knows all the healing
it needs,
we just need
to remember
how to extinguish
our cells,
honoring our pain:
death, decay, impermanence,
and all,
to form deeper
renewal

to regenerate
as cycles
only turn
when we honor
their "end"

What is the end
of the otherwise?

Can we honor our pain
—its steeped weight
telling
a tale
of wanting to
be with?
To call in?
Rather than
call out?
otherwise we
may recycle
and embody the same injustice
we seek to restore

Seeing cells as cells
is sometimes an
otherwise hell
Yet illness
is bitter antidote's
spell

For evil may come to rise
when we forget
what is already there
ungrateful
for some 'thing'
otherwise

I come to rest
myself
in reminder
that my body
knows
my pain not to divide

There is a fullness in this pain.
And a cancerous division
can only heal
without some battle of attrition

Does pain
lose its bitter taste
when we
stop
evaluating what we
gain? And remember what is already there?

What is other, wise?