I pass days inside this numbed cocoon.

An orb of muted feeling. Of life in low gear.

I wonder what it feels like otherwise and this, more than anything, frightens me.

Because if the memory of real life goes, how can I move on? I need it to. Need it to fit like a plywood plank beneath a mud rutted tire. Need it to coax my lurching body up and away. To ease the transition from stuck to mobile.

But it’s a thick muck, this. All mired in her eyebrows, furrowed and afraid. In the toothpick forearms she pushes towards my hands.

She was once all bustle, all life. That feels like such a long time gone now, two months in.

But I hold her toothpick arm. Smile a brave mother’s smile, artificial to this childish face. Draw tight the sheets around her shoulders. The folds of my own muted cocoon, obscuring this terrible question.

This fear that where I’ve got her shell, that bustling spirit won’t return.