So, next week, I lose a limb.
I have it marked on my calendar in neat, purple letters.
Humans, unlike starfish, spiders, or Dr. Curt Connors, cannot regrow limbs.
They can be amputated or removed surgically to prevent disease,
But this is different.

You see, this Friday, when I lose my limb, I won't get a replacement limb.
And the disease, if you can call it a disease, well,
As far as I can see, it'll spread faster than ever.

Have you ever loved someone so much that they become a part of you?

First of all, it's very unhealthy.

Second of all, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Well, if you've ever felt this way toward someone else, it's safe to say that someday, you will start to think of them as an actual part of you- like your other half.

The more time you spend with them, the more you'll read their expressions, pick up on the nuances of their speech and expression, the more you'll open up to them and sync up to their moods and habits-

It's frightfully parasitic.

And when they leave, it's like losing a part of yourself-
After all, you've put so much into each other,
So much that you'll never get back.

I'm in love, and it's beautiful and terrifying.

My love is a part of me that's getting ripped off this Friday.

You see, he's moving three hours away.

He's a year older, and he's going to college.
I'm more scared than he is about it.

Luckily, we're only separated by physical distance.
But honestly- you know that gag in movies where the villains tie the protagonist limb by limb to four horses and send the horses galloping off in four different directions?

That.
It feels like that.

This Friday, I'm losing a limb- for now,
I'm losing him.

So, soon, I'll have to learn to live as just one part of a whole.

That is, until Thanksgiving break...

I'm out here on a limb
D
A
  N
   G
     L
      I
      N
       G
Like a leaf on a tree in late autumn, yellow and spotted and dry, close to falling into the breeze that'll carry me away, far away from my home to the ground where I'll lay until the wind picks me back up only to place me somewhere new and foreign and unknown effortlessly.

I am out here on a limb.
You've already flown away and I see how you go with the wind and you flow with ease and it's all so simple for you; you let your troubles, and therefore yourself, "go with the flow" and now you're floating away into the horizon where people go once they've let go of the barriers and ties holding them back.

I am out here on a limb.
I'd like to follow and float and be free and land wherever the wind takes me, just like you bravely did. You let go and I haven't let go of my limb or you, though the wind is relentless so maybe it'll tear me away without my consent but right now you're floating away and I want to allow the wind to take me too but the uncertainty of whether we'll land somewhere close by is too immense to fathom, so I'll hold onto the limb and watch you float away and know that it's probably for the best that you're floating away
                                           from me.

Turns out I was your limb all along.
Watching you bud last spring, grow and form before my eyes in the summer, begin to wither by fall and float away in the icy-cold, biting winds of winter because I sent you there without knowing I even did so.

You went out on a limb.
You grew and us died and you left and I can't follow you this time because you're finally free and I can't hold onto you forever, not when the winds turn to warm breezes and you finally feel at ease floating away from me. The seasons came, we changed, you left, and I became a leaf on a tree refusing to leave because even if I did leave my own limb of comfort, the wind would keep us apart and it's for the better.

You were on a limb.
And now that you're floating away I can fully see just how lovely and peaceful you are,
because you are without
                                         me.

charcoal smudges and
indistinct hazes of darkness
phrases laced in harshness harnessed
and armed with my conviction
addiction to truth even
when sharp enough to harm you
disarm you
dis-arm
dismember
sever limb
from limb
tongue from clever whim
from quipped retort
designed to thwart
off the largest offender
up wind down wind
I don't remember really the direction
from whence one came nor
name nor much anything
other than

charcoal smudges and
indistinct hazes of darkness
phrases laced in harshness harnessed
and armed with my conviction
addiction to truth even
when sharp enough to harm you
disarm you
dis-arm
dismember
sever limb
from limb
the smother hot tension seething
wriggling writhing ringing in my head
sirens throwing up red flags
at catch phrases
stated like razor blades
repeated like mantras
she said she said
he said they them,
my head
they said I was lonely
they said I was weak i think i thought
I believed
they loved me
someone told me
I wasn't worth a cent or sense
or that I had no sense
or that I was nonsense
all of it I think I thought all of it
I tense, became tense I tensed
over overwhelming disapproval
even at a distance
for my depreciating assets
the expense of my existence
my penance for loving myself
when it so inconvenienced
those I was living around
was letting myself
think I was worthless
forgetting
how to count
senseless
centless
arbitrary
I have digressed

I guess this is all jumbled concept
an attempt to recreate the conception
of my desecration
of the crumbling of my foundation
of the ashes left
when they, when she,when all of them
broke inside my head
to watch the walls burn
from the inside out
ashes
and charcoal smudges with
indistinct hazes of darkness
phrases laced in harshness harnessed
and armed with my conviction
addiction to truth even
when sharp enough to harm you
disarm you
dis-arm
dismember
sever limb from limb
sin from sin
self
from worth
you hurt me
they hurt me
I hurt myself
because I believed you
were telling me the truth.
I became dark

charcoal smudges and
indistinct hazes of darkness
phrases laced in harshness harnessed
and armed with my conviction
addiction to truth even
when sharp enough to harm you
disarm you
dis-arm
dismember
sever limb
from limb
kin from
kin
i'm gone now.
think of me as charcoal.