Phantom hands on living shoulders
The passing touch that once meant “safe”
now feels, in memory, more like a knife wound.

Your face comes to my mind
and I try to snuff it out with my shoe, quickly,
before your eyes come in clear to me…
it’s the eyes that always get me, bringing on
another round of questioning “why???”
How could the eyes that have grounded and calmed me for so many years,
now watch calmly as I bleed out for all the world to see. 
Cast aside.

“Don’t you know you’re killing me?” I want to say.
“I am not recovering. I am not ok.”
but I realize I have said it. It is known.
“Stop now and I might still mend,”
but still you add another day of pain. “Even now”
I want to say, “I might still recover.”
You talk small talk while I bleed. Unphased. Unmoved.