First, no, this is not "autobiographical." It came from a moment of wondering what a full recovery really means--often it is based solely on the physical and not necessarily on the emotional. Who knows how these thoughts flesh themselves out. I don't.
Restoration
I had the love knocked out of me.
A flash of light and ringing ears,
And memories drained and flushed
As though they never were.
This accident has left me hollow,
Drained, it seems, not filled
By the inability to love.
My limbs, though whole, they seem encased
In braces of indifference.
I touch without feeling.
I see without emotion.
And nothingness is all that touches me.
Your fingertips caress my cheek.
Your lips press lightly into mine.
But my heart no longer tumbles,
If once it ever did.
Like phantom limbs that never were,
Gone numb,
I feel I must be missing
What surely once was there. But
A full recovery, they say these words,
And so it seems that it must be,
I have always been this way.
Chris Kmotorka, 23 Mar. 2009
