Not a festered mouth of flaccid skin crusting with gore, a leaking envelope of ichor, a bloody, jagged grin; Not a bluing, browning, new contusion gesturing vaguely toward its dull pain blotch, more ugly with each day's yellow effusion; And not the shatterings of a bone-in-pieces lost in a cast, unbreathing in a balm of plaster, reformed with calcic creases; But worse: the non-existence of your letter - no cicatrix reminding me that hurt can fix itself, restitch the tatters.
Daryl L. Houston