I used to think of you
as a phantom limb
the piece of my self
I once swore I needed
to survive
to function
and exist as me.
the piece of myself
that was severed--
skin, flesh, bone, muscle
torn from body
you were there
in the blood and swollen tendons
there in the violent separation
of a dark and gaping truth.
You were the limb
I thought I lost
and in your absence,
I sensed you-- as if still you were a living, growing part me of.
I felt you and knew you as a lingering pain
an ache stemming from the invisibility
of the space
you once occupied.
In your absence,
I still feel you move
and flow
alongside the daily rhythms of my own body
as if trying to reclaim your role
as a fundamental necessity.
The moments I hurt the most,
are the moments I forget to mourn your loss.
and the detachment
haunts me with now distorted memories of
movements and sensations
I'll never again know.
I was once told that the frequency
and intensity of phantom pains
will usually decline with time...
and so I wait,
with one ghost of an arm
for time to make you disappear.
