we make hay out of the light inside the cabin: reedy, aching culms of chartreuse rattling sympathetically with each bump and wending in the rails. my limbs on the left have gone awol again in a frustratingly and overly familiar loss of my sinister. this time, they have vanished from sight and are not merely non-responsive. i can’t see my wrist and knuckles despite the searing and swelling that renders them useless. the crystals lining the tunnel shimmer back through the window onto your tunic and catch in your necklace. a few beams find their way across your skin and mine, making nests and warrens along the way. they tickle my cheekbones and the bridge of my nose and you expectantly wait to see if a sneeze will be coaxed out of me.

that we are on this journey is nothing short of a miracle given my loss of the sinister becoming unremitting. last month i nearly sacrificed all my belongings as i ran through another station much like the one we departed from. i lost my footing on the cool marble of the staircase, fell forward, and my bag fell from my shoulder, over the balustrade, splitting open when it landed on the floor below. the clatter of nutshells reflected off the ground and the windows as they spilled forth through the threadbare duckcloth. all the other itinerants making their way to the trains below us circled their wagons of empathy. some travelers avoided any proximity, but those who didn’t remained unaware of the nutshells that split and crepitated under their feet.

you gaze along the edge of my eyelids as if to read me from the outside in. after averting my eyes, i glance back through despondent breaths. the last time i saw you was before the loss of my sinister, when you let me know how my left side was my best side. well before the words had even reached my ears i knew your fondness for that hand and wrist, watching it become swallowed by the depths of any vessel it found its way inside. my grief crackles off my lashes through the cabin and you hear my loss reeling out of me. you shift in your seat, searching for something without looking or using your hands. the corners of your eyes contract as we stay silent. i close my eyes as the hospitality of sunlight spreads across the back of my neck. as we drift into the countryside, i feel you grab and envelop my left hand. i wonder if i’m dreaming as the servos in my wrist and elbow whirr into position.