it sucks to embody a metaphor
“Too bad”, they told you,
“We were able to rebuild
the worst of the visible damage.
But these are inoperable.
You’ll learn to accept them.
And you look pretty functional after all.
We did a great job resurrecting you”
Purple hearts
Silver arrows
Sharp-edged shards of destruction
Lodged here
And here and
Here
Encapsulated in
Nightmare, lymph, muscle
They will lie dormant
For the decades
Until some swell of memory
Awakens them, and moving
Like blind fish from the caverns of flesh
Seek light again.
The splinters emerge
Gritting skin with old blood,
Poisons long brewed
Skirting an artery
drivng through flesh
Against tight-wound nerves
Does the metaphor
Comfort?
That decades later you
Manifest in sharp
Edges
Long slow healing
Or is it bitter?
Spines emerging
Where’s the prize
In having held dormant
The pain,
Transcended the immediate?
Purple hearts
Silver arrows
