Spinothalamic Tract

Loving you from a distance is like stroking a phantom limb.
I writhe for you in the night, clambering at the air,
To find you gone, to find you not there.
The double negative of you developing
In the dark room of my sleep,
Until the shadowy red and black overwhelms me.

The root of the itch grows in the graveyard of nerves
That haunts where you used to be:
In my arms, in my ears.
I swear sometimes I can hear you
As the compulsion to itch travels the curve
Of my naked, useless spine
To my brain, where it becomes pain.

It would take more to separate us than obsidian,
Or miles of map and road.
Still I ache for you, my craniophagus twin.
I scratch at my soul as I wait for the weeks to die,
So that you again may be stitched to my side.

The relief will be sweet,
Like the emptying of a full bladder.
Every kiss will be soon a stitch that will dissolve
So that no one can see the seam,
And then it will only be heat that rises,
Up my spinothalamic tract.

Until then, I scratch red in the black.