A Sudden Pain

What do you fear in yourself? What do you watch yourself for, dread to see, flinch away from? Is it a tone of voice, a gesture, a pattern of behavior? Maybe you have a temper, an addiction, a weakness that you can't fight quite hard enough or long enough. You're having a perfectly good day, and then suddenly the shadow moves across the sun. You stumble, only a half-step if you're lucky, a graceless sprawl if you're not. There's a moment of disorientation, blood on the palms of the hands or a skinned knee if the fall was a serious one, and that sudden pain of knowing regardless of whatever physical signs remain. That inner pain is worse, actually. The scars carried inside are always worse than the ones left on the outside because you know what they came from, something for your mind to worry itself against like a tongue against a sore tooth. After the fall comes the excruciating process of dragging yourself up again and rebuilding your careful guard against that slice of darkness which will, for a time at least, be content to recede.