How do I even begin to connect with her again? A question waiting, longing for an answer. Hidden, disguised, unknown. She’s so far removed.

Cigarettes and ashtrays. “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“I didn’t while we were together.”

Sedated and seduced by pain meds, she sits in my bed and tries not to feel. The pain has become a physical manifestation of what has buried itself inside, alive… bruising, bleeding, binding.

“I want you to feel again!”

I scream words untouched as she calls back in words tinged with blood, “Once you begin to see me as we, I can return. You have disowned me. You call me she, her, but I am you! You are me. Accept me, take me back and let yourself feel again, or here I will stand on the perimeter of your existence.”