and every pain amounts to a phantom limb dangling inches from me, every pain a soreness i can’t fucking recover from. i can feel it just there at the periphery, just beyond my reach, a relief from all this, the promise of fulfillment, of being made whole. but i lie in the dark beside him and it’s a fucking miracle that i don’t skin him alive. that i don’t show him exactly how it feels to be this open and lacking, to be driven mad by the thought that there’s something vitally important missing inside of me and he just refuses to fucking see it.