Titans

My hands move,

before my brain can tell them to.

Here in the artificial glow,

where everything is silver, grey, white

and neat and clean and bright,

another person takes over

my limbs.

No black, no dark –

the recently familiar

is scrubbed clean here,

save for my dirty footprints

tracing a path back to the dust.

And with newly found supplies,

this newly found me

works.

With white threads,

coloured bottles – the smell

of chemicals circles in my nose.

Silver metal clinking,

clean fabric crinkling,

and the blood staining

the sheets, my hands, my clothes.

A gasp.

“I think she’s waking up.”

And I know what to do

without knowing,

move for the solution

without solving.

I’m a working machine

that doesn’t recall being switched on –

and more disturbingly, doesn’t recall

being a machine

at all.

And I fix her

under the LED glow. Even though

I’m surrounded by people

I barely know (I barely know

her). Because we’re all trapped

by the unknown

in this place –

both outside and around and in –

and there’s no escape.

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

And I remove the bullet.

And I clean away the blood.

And I stitch up the wound.

And I wrap it with fabric.

And I tell the truth.

“I don’t know.”