"If it didn’t hurt so much, it might have been poetic: the way the pain returned in loops, slow then sudden, dull then piercing, always raw, always reluctant to leave. And maybe it was a little, as pain in itself could be romanticised and, for the intent of survival, perceived to be this sweetly scathing thing.”

from "The Anatomy of a Boy Who Never Became a Man" by Enyinna Nnabuihe