I’m over being sorry
about the palm that bothers
the cat’s belly in search
of something angora.
About fingertips that have given up sensation
like a long-term Lenten sacrifice.
About this damn idiopathy
they call neuropathy,
functional neurological disorder,
because they cannot name
the disease. I shake. I contort. I’ve
forgotten what I used to believe.
But maybe it doesn’t matter.
What cat likes their belly
touched anyway? What person
wants to feel everything?
Author's Note: I doubt I will continue to work on this poem. It's morbid and not very useful for me to meditate on loss. Continuous self pity has never been my "vibe." After a polite nod to natural sadness and anxiety, I prefer to focus on the unique journey I am on and what I can learn through it. Instead of judging this decline in health as a sentence, I can choose to look at it as merely something different, an experience, a new lens. As my mother said when she was seriously ill, "It's all part of life." I was angry at the time -- how could she just accept it? I think I am starting to understand.
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
