Phantom Limb

She holds tight...she always holds tight.

I lived, still do, in a multistory complex. The worst kind to be in during a fire. I may have forgotten the cause, but I'll never forget the girl. I tried so hard to pull her from those flames. When you lose someone, you are supposed to be able to move on. Though it is her who never really left my side.

I still feel her tug at my arm, she tugs at the one I lost. The one I held onto her so tightly with. She still has ahold from the other side. At night she gets angry, jerks and pulls at my flesh that burned away.

"Stop!" I shouted. Past midnight. 'How long has it been' I cry to myself. I still live in the same building. She still tugs away.

She'd pull me out of the building, then onto the street. Now she pulls harder, holds tighter. At night she claws, at night I weep.

"Please, I beg you, I'm sorry. Haven't I paid the price?" Head down she walks me out my door out onto the street.

She pulls me farther each day.

My feet stamp down onto a grassy edge: "Cypress Hills". A place I remember.

4 am: I follow her, I follow her always. She pulls and claws, we pass a sign "Cypress Hills". I wish that it would end. Will it ever end? It seems I lost myself ages ago.

She pulls, she always pulls. I see it, the gravestone.

Her gravestone.

I stop.

She yanks.

I pull back.

She claws.

I give in, I always give in.

I can see the stone, I look for her name...I only see mine.

I hold tight.

I always hold tight.