Feeling

I remember when I used to feel.
My skin was thinner then. I could
feel the warmth of the sun on my bones
as it filled the earth, like an overflown Tub.

And I could feel the wind as it cut through
my skin, and stung my sunken chest; my poor,
defenseless chest, its ribcage made of

hundred-year-old glass. I remember when
I used to feel the words, instead of just
thinking them. I’d breathe them out slowly,
leaving my lungs sore and dry—gasping wildly
as I sucked back in, searing waves of air
kissing and inflating them again.

I remember sleepless nights, my eyelids were
black and blue pillows where two stolen emeralds

would lie. And I seem to remember, though
I’m not quite certain, a love that burned
more fiercely than this apathy ever will.

*

In my memory, I see a soft white hand,
petting my head with compassion in its fingertips.
This vision, violently different than the sight of the long
bony fingers, that tug at my hair now, tearing out

a few lucky strands, and letting them float
to the floor, forever severed from the body
that took each one of them for granted.

When I pick one up, and twirl it between
my fingertips, I see the long thin fiber,
with its tiny white root, like a tiny hand;
one that simply loosened its grip, and
let go: forgetting that it ever used to feel.