Pain is entirely secret. Left to the bearer of it. Individually lamented and individually lonesome. No other can express it, come in contact with it. Why perhaps silence is the only answer for it.

Yet the individual still screams—wails against the secret of his sorrow. And the grief of it—there is no succor. Yet the screamer still screams, cradled in pain, grieving for an answer that cannot be discerned except in the face of Leviathan. Why perhaps silence is the only answer for it.

Still, some speak for it. Usurp its voice. Demand succor. Claim succor. It is merely mimicry and through that barbaric and plastic mirroring pain is given answer in a false righteousness that blames blindly and the mimicking continues until the mimicking is the scream and there is privileged pride in that appropriation that lifts the mime above all other sorrow. Yet, pain is still lonesome and entirely secret. Why perhaps silence is the only answer for it.

Pain is entirely exposed. Unbearable, unshareable, and exposed. Felt beyond, in the other: I am your pain and you are my pain. Why perhaps the word is the only answer for it. The root of that pain is an empathetic diversity, imagined concretely in love. Do not reject that empathy, that diversity. It may not be able to define your pain, rid your pain, comfort your pain. But, it feels it. When it cries entrance, let it in. It is a communal sorrow, expressed joyfully.

Art shatters pain. Art succumbs to pain. Its individual lonesomeness; its communal diversity. And the succumbed art lets the pain lie shattered. In its image, Art reveals where pain is broken, where pain is weak. Conflict exposes the fragility of it. It is Art’s one unforgivable sin: letting pain lie shattered and exposed: helpless.

The audience maneuvers in the secret and exposed pain. They may laugh, they may cry, they may wonder. And the audience reconnects itself within that secret exposure. Forgives the art and the artist. Carries from that shattering something whole. Something strong where it is weak. A flawed strength. But, still a strength. Why Perhaps the image of the word is the only answer. And there is silence in that word.

Yes, your pain is secret. I will never understand it. But, I feel it and in my art I expose it. Forgive me when you discover I’ve let it become helpless.