Ardent stoicism

I just want to cut deep enough to carve out the pain. Where is the root of the root that hides from me so I cannot excavate? Must I keep slashing the surface to become numb to response, then limp and ragged for a time until distress flares again?

If severing need and feeling weren't options, at least grant me indifference. Then the pain wouldn't claw and swell so. Then it would matter not that I had to go through it, alone. Then dark, diseased thoughts would not vex me as they do.

If only apathy were more easily available over pharmacy counters or street corners.