phantom heart
i carried a phantom heart,
a pulse that was no longer mine,
yet it beat in where the memory resides.
neurologists speak of phantom limbs,
hands that still grasp,
feet that still walk,
though flesh has vanished into silence.
so too did your heart remain,
an echo stitched into my veins.
a ghost organ refusing to die,
clenching against the absence,
reminding me you were once alive in me.
was that grief, or neurology?
a sensory ghost,
a cruel persistence of love
that refuses reanimation.
i walked unsteady,
looking down at the ground,
searching for balance
in the weight of what was gone.
but time moved through me,
seasons turned,
and the ache began to change its shape.
the phantom heart kept beating,
no longer as a cruel ghost,
but a hidden compass.
i carried it for so long,
and now it carries me.
