The transitive nature of pain

I have begun to think about
The transitive nature of pain
How we recalibrate the scale
As we travel through experience


The blood curdling howls
That echoed throughout
When you had your ears pierced at four
Your cousin vowed never to endure the same


The stern insistence upon walking
On a broken limb despite ready access
To an assistive device
Thirty years later


Is it the lack of exposure
That causes the former?
The accumulated aches the latter?
Does the humming engine of our brains
Need to warm up to the release of endorphins
Over decades?


Yet some of us still wince at little things
While others line up for punishment
Will allow another to make them bleed
With no greater reward than the moment


I pay for pain
I invest in ink and a needle
And a beautiful woman
Who traces meticulous flowing lines into my skin
You will know my body by what she has left there
A gallery that someday will no longer walk


Privately
I ask for pain
Not in words
But in gestures
Small movements
Reactions to firm touch
Because my ten
Is another's one hundred