They told me I was sick.
“Rare.”
“Uncommon.”
A thing that would take me
piece by piece—
strip me down
to the ruin of the man
I thought I was.
They told me my life would change.
That pain would move in,
rent‑free,
torment racking the frame
of something already broken.
Sanity taken
as a token of payment.
Lank limbs left swaying
with motions
I never asked for.
They told me—
but I didn’t listen.
Didn’t want to.
I hid from hope,
because once hope wakes,
it shows you the dream
you’ve already lost.
They poked at me.
Testing.
Swabbing.
Noting.
Prodding.
A parade of hands and instruments
with no answers.
Prognoses served with pride,
knowledge pulled from books
stacked in hierarchies
for white coats to wear
like armour—
or costumes.
Costumes stained with blood.
Body parts in bins.
They told me I was broken,
but they would fix me.
They would repair.
And here I lay—
pain numbed,
life sitting quietly beside me
like a stranger
waiting for the right moment
to speak.
In bed,
I dream the familiar.
Awake,
I live the unfathomable.
The terrible result
of knife,
anaesthetic,
stitching—
and arrogance
dressed up as bedside manner.
They told me I would live.
That I was lucky
to have the attention
of the best.
And in return—
I lose my leg.
Taken
like an offering
to some dark rite,
some ritual of knife and life,
healing fear
with horror.
I look down
at scar and stump.
Incompletion sits heavy
on the side of my face
I dare not turn—
because if I turn,
they’ll see the hollow sockets
fear carved out of me.
Fear’s insomnia
prying my lids apart
so every drop of torture
can work
its truth.
They told me I am healed.
But they never told me
the cost.
My grief.
My vanity.
My uprightness.
My everything.
To navigate the anatomical reality captured in the poem After the Letting Go, the Mind Mechanism prescribes the following statements through these identified nodes. Each statement reflects the method of moving from a wordless vibration into a Manageable Data Point.
