XXIII Parts by Eli Oko

Now I’m left to live with everything new to me

Or will they drown, die off and return to dust
These body parts that are supernumerary.

Your love brought on changes I never expected to fashion
These extras I had to learn to cope with
These parts I had to fathom
23 to be exact and as I lay in regrets
I watch them fall from my midst
As memories I resent
I mark them as yours
As to you they belong
And conversations with what was actually yours
Was like ad-libs to a song
So melodic
So what was it?
These parts that you gave
These parts that grew because of you
Now falling away

I knew my hands (2) would feel different
As your face they would long
But as the scales began to form
I didn’t know what was wrong
I saw them overlap like a reptile
So no one I would touch
For these hands were now dieing
Failing without your love
I expected my smile to die down
For it to take longer to curve
But as more teeth became apparent
These additional incisors (8) had to learn
That no one would be enlightened
Or feel much, for these teeth were now rotting
Failing without your love

As arms (2) grew from my elbows
These limbs that you liked
We’re now stretched out for comfort
And caused all to hide
Now folded into themselves
Closed up long enough
I gave off the scent that I was disinterested, now disinterested
Failing without your love
You called them noses (1) as if more than one
Now I smell only your scent, stronger the longer you’re gone
As if two weren’t enough my ears (2)  have doubled in number
I hear clearer the echoed sounds
Of silence and wonder
Wondering has changed with what feels like an extra brain (1)
I now challenge my thoughts, creating new pictures in frames
I still say ‘we’ as if together we came
These lips (2) that are yours, have grown cobwebs
Sealing them up
Everyone speaks but I can’t, even my inner voice is
Failing without your love

You couldn’t manage my baggage
Said it was too much to carry
You saw my shoulders hunch over and bend with the weight
But think… who would take me now with double the shoulders (2) today
You are the biggest burden I carry
They’ll never quite remove
Because true love never fails
Yet every love from here
Will be failing without you
Without you my Eyes (2) fail me
A vision so unclear
As if the present was much further and the future was near
My last part never quite existed
You pumped the blood back into its veins
You gave life to its cycle
Made it beat once again
My heart (1) stands alone
Just a part of the real me you touched
And destroyed
Like spaceships floating
You commanded, deployed
It’s the only part you own that I struggle to heal
All the extras were your fantasy
But this part was real
Now monstrous I’ve become
And scared to reveal
If this 23rd part doesn’t find another way to be pumped
It will be the end of the existence of me, I would be left
Drowning,

Failing without your love.