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Phantom Sounds

I am overcome with a sense of dread,
when hearing talk of that leg injury. 
It becomes an atrocious time machine 
throwing me viciously on to my couch. 
Will it ever feel like normal again?
I wish I could just flush bad memories. 

My mind is now flooded with memories 
and I am vibrating with rhythmic dread.
I’m stuck in a fractured body again, 
frozen in place with a rough injury.
Miserable and crazed on an old couch
my mind is back to a high-low machine.

I’m not able to tailor the machine 
to only play back happy memories.
I cannot simply throw away a couch 
to avoid a head full of instant dread.
That piece stolen by a chance injury
lets me know I’ll never be whole again. 

I would love to be my old self again,
not repaired by a doctor or machine.
It’s me I made it through an injury,
but I’m done being cuffed to memories.
An overactive mind detailing dread 
happens at a certain spot on the couch. 

Oh, horribly uncomfortable couch!
Here they all come emerging once again.
Why is furniture setting off this dread?
It’s not a doctor’s surgical machine,
still it calls back my fading memories.
I’m haunted by this ghost of injury. 
  
I just want to bleed out this injury,
let myself relax on my cozy couch.
Now I am cursed with levied memories 
whenever I lie back and try again.
I’ve got to silence the roaring machine 
that’s instigating this feeling of dread.

These memories bring chronic injury 
that is fusing my dread into this couch.
A Phantom raised again by my machine.

Copyright © Melani Udaeta

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