The Suffering Olympics
a new poem about the cost of comparison and the call of connection
I wrote a poem this week in the middle of working on my next manuscript, and I want to share it with you here first. Hope this gives oxygen to your own fire to befriend rather than belittle, to commune where most only know how to compare.
—KJ
The Suffering Olympics
I know you think you have to be the best.
Your whole life you’ve been graded and assessed.
/
You learned to trace
the shape of your face
in a mirror reflecting back
blue ribbons hung above your bed.
/
Now you only know how to see yourself
through a mirror of praise.
A person built of sweat and contest,
fight and conquest.
/
Every win and letter
stacked like a podium
beneath your name
tethers you to triumph
and, maybe, also shame.
/
There are no gold medals for grief.
There are no trophies for trauma.
There is no podium for pain.
/
There is only the axe of ache,
splitting through every hollow step
we’ve stood above others.
/
Compete in the Suffering Olympics
and you’ll become insufferable.
And, therefore, more alone
with your ache.
/
Suffering doesn’t make you special.
It shows you where you’ve always stood.
A human among humans, all held
in the universe’s heart.
/
There are no gold medals for grief.
Instead, there is Grace,
the world record holder
for patience, the hall of fame
friend of personhood.
/
She holds the hatchet
to the hate stacked around our souls
boxing us into believing we must be better
to be beloved. Let her chop and chop and chop.
/
Then light a match.
Drop it on the pile
that used to be a podium.
Warm yourself by the fire
of your futile beliefs
and dismantled dreams.
/
Set out chairs in a circle
and call out in your clear
and humbled voice:
Come and sit with me awhile.
/
I’ll come and crown you
with flowers for your fight. I’ll lay
the weight of glory around your neck.
Then together, we’ll raise our voices
/
to join the anthem of our true homeland,
proud citizens of the country of beating hearts.
//
I’d love to hear how this landed with you. Have you stood on that podium too? Or maybe you’ve felt puny beneath someone else’s preference for a podium to elevate their pain.
If you were to write this from your own perspective, what would you say?
Perhaps there are pieces of podiums in the Suffering Olympics that you’d like to burn up too. What would you name those pieces in your own pile of wood?
For example: pride, self-sufficiency, an incessant belief that you will always be misunderstood or inadequately helped, rage at healthier bodied people or neurotypical folks who just have no clue what your life is like, the list could maybe be infinite for me…
Maybe the comments section can be our own campfire of sorts.
We’re talking about attachment theory in our community and I admitted to some of my inner circle that being securely attached feels like a pipe dream, that I feel like I’ll never get over the abandonment and spiritual trauma I’ve been through. One of my best friends reminded me that healing isn’t a prerequisite for relationship, but that relationship is how we move through our healing, learning how to bear witness to the process. I didn’t come out of that meeting feeling on top of the world, but I did feel less despairing and more motivated to keep going…and certainly that counts for something.
There is the image I see in the mirror, the image I think others see, and the true image Jesus sees. They are so incredibly difficult to reconcile in the face of suffering and grief. No. I mean impossible to reconcile. I must choose one and live into that. Today, as I head into the Mayo Clinic again, I’m choosing to let Jesus define me. Not the diagnoses.