Wounded

I remember finding you.
It was 11:07am on a Monday.
Your hands were ice cold.
Your hands were always cold.
I stared at your chest
to see if it would move.
I listened by your mouth
to hear you breathe.

I tried to take your blood pressure;
I wanted to see the heart blink
on the screen just once, twice, anything.
I thought if I could just do something -
find a way to keep you with me -
it would all be okay.

Silence filled my head
and my chest filled with pain.
It was as if someone cut my heart out
with a serrated blade and no anesthesia,
no antiseptic,
the moment yours stopped.

I am a walking wound now
without you
unable to move
through this barren land,
abandoned and without.

There is no heart
left in me, in my chest
just a gaping wound -
bloody, infected with rotting flesh.

My friends keep trying to pack the hole
with plaster, love, tissues, anything
but it won’t fill.
The maggots have settled in now
soon will come the flies.

I couldn’t save you, couldn’t keep you
here by my side,
and nothing can take this hurt away.

I am a shell of a woman
ghost on the phone
fugitive from my life.