After all the operations, after the slow unraveling,
I trace the shimmer left behind,
a pearl forming in the absence of what was—
the weight of my steps lighter, not in grace,
but in uncertainty mixed with hope.
I do not run anymore
Yet, I watch Tom Cruise sprint, sprint—
limbs loose, effortless at sixty-two,
vaulting over rooftops,
clinging to the side of airplanes,
breathing forever underwater.
He crashes, bruises, bleeds in theory,
but never in flesh—
his smile intact, his hair untouched,
a muscular chest absorbing each blow,
with no marks,
no limp, no hesitation.
I content myself with the thought
that I am the real mission impossible,
the one facing the final dead reckoning.
Sure, I sit here, reckoning with the
dead weight of legs that will not vault,
feet that drag instead of sprint,
watching a man outrun time itself,
as I count the losses my body cannot ignore.
Neuropathy hums in my hands,
a static whisper beneath the skin,
feet waiting for signals that never arrive.
Pouchitis returns, rhythmic,
a ghost cycle that feels almost natural,
a body remembering what it should forget.
And yet—there is something else.
Not just the loss, not just the ache,
but the way illness made me listen,
the way it softened the edges of my voice,
the way it let me hold my wife’s hand
with a reverence I never knew before.
I see faces at the mall, at the movies—
those moving without thought,
and those like me, learning how to walk again.
I see my brother’s quiet grief and joy,
my own reflected back in his silence.
To confront death is to speak to it,
to name it,
to let it sit beside you,
to let it teach you how to be human.
I am a better poet for this.
Not for the suffering,
but for the softness it left me.
And somewhere within the nacre,
within the slow layering of survival,
I am still here.
of survival,
I am still here.
