"For the patients, long after the amputation is made, say they still feel pain in the amputated part. Of this they complain strongly, a thing worthy of wonder and almost incredible to people who have not experienced this. I believe this notion, the continuance of pain after loss, to be direct proof of the existence of the soul." –Ambroise Paré, 1551
I know you're out there somewhere living life—breathing in and out, laughing the kind of laugh that crinkles your eyes. I can’t hear your sounds, no matter how hard my ears strain. We no longer share the same spaces, though we share the same sky, and I often wonder where you fall under it. I try to visualize the distance, sticking pins in a map—blue for me, green for you—to mark the miles. Without you, I ache for what used to be. An itch that can't be scratched. A phantom limb.
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6 comments:
beautiful, right on the nail entry!
i keep comparing it to mourning. death seperates us from now and then, but we are seperated from here and now. it's so crazy to think someone whom you loved so greatly is out there, somewhere, and you don't even know how they're doing. a friend of mine told me she use to have 'moon dates' with her boyfriend while he was in iraq. it's hard to know they're out there but you can't do anything about it... it just always seems like there is something missing...
This is beautifully heartbreaking, Melia. You always blow me away with your talent, and your innate ability to tip-toe into the crevasses of my mind and express exactly what I am thinking at the exact moment I am thinking it!
I say: quit your job, sell your house and all belongings that will hold you down, find your way to Europe, live by means of love and spirit, and write, write, write. Never stop writing.
love this. you are so very talented. the moon comment reminds me of Fivel.
I'm reading!
I love this thing you're doing with the tiny stories. I guess that's really what my poetry is, but I break the lines at intervals.
Working on a new one.
Thinking of making a separate blog for the poetry.
Carrie
"They were taking part of his bandages off. He could feel the coolness the sudden drying of sweat on his left side. They were working on his arm. He felt the pinch of a sharp little instrument grabbing something and getting a bit of his skin with each grab.
He didn't jump. He simply lay there because he had to save his strength. He had to figure out why they were pinching him.
After each pinch there was a little pull in the flesh of his upper arm and an unpleasant point of heat like friction. The pulling kept on in short little jerks with his skin getting hot each time. It hurt. He wished they'd stop. It itched. He wished they'd scratch him.
He froze all over still and rigid like a dead cat. There was something wrong about this pricking and pulling and friction heat. He could feel the things they were doing to his arm and yet he couldn't rightly feel his arm at all. It was like he felt inside his arm. It was like he felt through the end of his arm. The nearest thing he could think of to the end of his arm was the heel of his hand. But the heel of his hand the end of his arm was high high high as his shoulder.
Jesus Christ they'd cut his left arm off.
They'd cut it right off at the shoulder he could feel it plain now.
Oh my God why did they do a thing like that to him? They couldn't do it the dirty bastards they couldn't do it. They had to have a paper signed or something. It was the law. You can't just go out and cut a man's arm off without asking him without getting his permission because a man's arm is his own and he needs it. Oh Jesus I have to work with that arm why did you cut it off? Why did you cut my arm off answer me why did you cut my arm off? Why did you why did you why did you?
My arm..."
Dalton Trumbo had a thing against commas, but I think the rambling run-on really hits home when Johnny Got His Gun blends into first person. Trumbo makes a lot of visciously honest points in that book, but he does them with a horrific realism, and I really think you connected with something he missed -- and you do it romantically and I haven't decided which. I feel is more awful! But I love them both. An excellent quote, Melia, and an amazing piece, they together.
(My second favorite of your work.) Thank you for sharing! = )
when i was 17 i was fascinated with self-help books. yes, their whole existence, their point, why people read them and what prompts them to do so. anyway, i read one called 'living your colors.' one of my favorite quotes was, "for blues, a heartache is a bodily sensation, as real as a broken arm."
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