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.

Clawmarks

"Trust me" vanishes as soon as it leaves your lips, and reality
creeps in. If only I could stretch those words out forever, like a
shield. Momentum is in our favor, but it's the only thing that is,
and the storms are strong with no signs of stopping. The most
determined child's "momentum" is reduced to a stumble in a
hurricane, before she is swept away.

Would you fight for me, plant a flag and validate my footprint
on your heart... say "She was always here. She belongs here.
She is part of who I am"? Or will you let me go to dust,
replaying the memory of me as proxy, a mirage, refusing to look
too close?

Tell a joke, laugh, smile, flip the hair,
<pause>
smile again
Tilt the head with mild, friendly inquisitiveness
Studies in friendliness, well-received, good likeable girl

Platonic ritual dance, well studied, often rehearsed
divulging nothing of the dark space behind where
electronic shocks shoot out
at the first sign of connectivity, warning! Warning!

Girl in a box, pleading to be seen,
well trained rat-of-a-thing
unable to reach out through the shocks that never miss their mark,
able to be reached if only…
if only… somebody knew to look for her