For me, the greatest pain isn’t of what was inflicted or what was lost. Beyond that is the hunger, and that’s the killer. My heart is beaten, but it is the starvation that leaves it vulnerable to the beatings that wound it beyond feeling.

My heart is chained to the bottom of the sea, struggling to the surface for air, but no, it is thrown deeper into the debts and lashed as it drowns and begs for air. Taunted by the air it cannot breathe, it is in agony to which it cannot survive and it is tortured with pain and only pain.

With pain, you are beaten senseless. With hunger, your body slowly eats you from the inside because it has nothing to feed on and you linger as you suffer in starvation.

They say, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” Despite my heart lacking love at all, that’s true, isn’t it? The having and losing is better than beginning with nothing at all. One is at least fed before that is taken away verses one who suffers from starvation.

Hope is a sad joke to thrive for another day, but the heart slowly dies until nothing is left but an empty shell.