an instrument

Petra Simoné

“I’ll never walk again!”
“I’ll carry you.”


The hand,
the agent of separation,
has vanished into the past.
I remain,
contemplating the geography of my own back.
I look intact.
That is the primary deception.
The surface is smooth, the skin unbroken,
but it happened in the dark,
without a sound.
That dotted line,
that black meridian traced upon my spine,
sank inward.
It is etched now into the myelin,
a permanent longitude of division.
I am severed along an invisible seam.
Some days,
the two halves hold together through sheer habit.
I walk, I speak, I resemble the woman I was.
Other days, the fault line slips,
and the great continental drift of my own body begins.
Energy leaks out through the unseen fissure,
draining into an untouchable void.
I become heavy with the weight of my own disconnection,
an internal amputation.
I live in the quiet aftermath of a private execution,
holding the pieces of myself together,
wondering which half of me
will wake up tomorrow.