I can remember each time
I’ve been zapped by a horse fence.

I told him
it only took me twice—
never a third.
I learned to look for them.

The first time,
I was near the old outhouse
with my younger brother and sister,
waiting my turn.

I swung my arms wide
to show something “big,”
and my hand hit the wire.

Lightning snapped through me.
I thought I’d died.
I fell to the ground, stunned—
tears spilling from the shock
and the not-understanding.

My brother thought I was faking
to scare him.
So he grabbed the thin wire
with both hands.

“No!” I screamed
as his knees buckled
and he crumpled beside me.

We smiled at each other
down in the dirt,
sharing the strange moment
of having survived.

Then my sister hit it too.
And when we asked her why,
she said she felt left out.

I think this is where
my appreciation of pain
—and the pleasure it gave way to—
first began.

He smiles and nods,
being of a similar ilk.

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