You don’t know how it feels.

When you are cut from your lifeline
like an apple being picked
when it isn’t fully grown.
When you are replaced
with hard plastic and metal
where bone should be.

You probably want to know why he hates you.

It is because he has to learn how to walk again.
Because you can’t run like I could.
Because you can’t kick a soccer ball like I could.
Because you can’t make him itch like I could.
Because you are a reminder of the infection.
The infection...
that took me away from him.

I was made with him.
You were made for him.

You took six weeks to be created
I took nine months.
I was his first step,
You were a puzzle piece
that didn’t quite fit
You had to be forced
by people in white masks and blue gloves
They couldn’t touch you and
neither can he.
So instead you lay on his bedroom floor.

And I will not feel bad for you because
I am lying in a medical waste bin.
Waiting for my turn to enter the fire.

This
is
my
hell.

I miss him,
will you tell him
that I miss him?
Let him know the feeling is mutual.

I understand if you tear this up
there is no warmth in you.
No blood will ever pump through you.
Trust me, I get it.

When the heart dies, it is buried where it belongs.
Being hugged by its fellow vital organs.
it’s just like taking a nap
they say.
But when I die,
I am surrounded
by other dispensable body parts.
We are the forgotten few.
People do not have funerals for finger tips.
It feels like I am being eaten alive.

You can’t tell me I should feel bad for you.
Or that I should feel sorry for you.
Because I was alive,
I was moving
and you
are plastic.

Just,
tell him goodbye for me.

Is it odd that I hate tree stumps?

I mean, really, is it just me?
Is there something wrong with me?
I walk past them on the roadside
And something seems to break free.

I feel tense and taut;

A green branch pulled tight
On the saw edge of a gardener’s knife,
Peeling back one fibre at a time.
I can’t stop it to save my life.

It makes my skin crawl

To see the corpse left jutting up
Like the last tooth of a diseased crone,
Like a tag on the skin of the earth,
A drying scab to make the mother moan.

Couldn’t they just dig it up,

Or is that too much to ask?
Not enough to slay the ancient tree,
But to leave it lying on the ground;
Like leaving the foot of an amputee.

It makes me so mad

That I wonder I don’t complain,
But then I know a letter will be ignored,
As the death of such a mighty sentinel
Is a thing our conscience can afford.

It’s not like it was alive…

But the sarcasm doesn’t matter,
And the funny looks I get while I weep
Sink like the teeth of a saw,
Cutting through the body at my feet.

Am I the only one who hates tree stumps?