People tell stories of phantom limbs pieces of themselves that were lost were severed that they can still feel. They are haunted by what they once had an itch here an ache there ghost sensations as powerful as the real thing. You are my phantom limb. You fill the hole in the center of my chest with a continuous presence that radiates outwards in soft gray waves. I feel your fingers on my stomach your lips on my cheek your heat mingling with mine. Always. Pleasure mixed with pain. Because there is pain, yes. Pain of remembrance pain of what I left behind pain of what I must wait to regain. But there is so much more than that. A which sort of beauty, my little ghost heart. And while there are those who reject the invisible part of themselves I relish it. My constant reminder that you were once in my arms that we truly have touched that this love has an origin.