Two weeks after you left
the cycle progressed -
mutant and dishonorable transformations
ineffectively countered at every turn -
left hand fingers curled in chemical
and dermatological cellular reassembly
bloated sage-filled blisters
webbing the palm, weed roots replacing
tendons contort the physical structure
to a useless club.

I began preparations for
the appendage's removal, however
unprovoked images of thick green sap
congealing around a bloated red stump
each instance invariably violently inverted
my gastric processes with the utterly
inexplicable yet powerfully nauseous
recounting of a slightly rancid
Christmas fruitcake I once mistakenly
consumed as a young child.
In the cool omniscience of hindsight,
I am convinced the teeth
were responsible for this
conceptual atrocity:
they would quite purposefully recall
the debilitating, sickly-sweet odor
of the upheaved remains of that
cursed Yuletide confection wafting
up to my stained child face,
reconstitute the vile aroma through
their extensive root memory system
and release the decayed and rotted
stench directly into
my nasal cavity.

After only a few pathetic attempts
at stifling the revoltingly stained odor
through will and producing the hacksaw
I always keep safely hidden
under my bed, I realized amputation
of my afflicted hand would merely
serve as a pruning measure; although
the brush obviously desired my
physical status remain intact.  Sullenly,
I resigned the idea of removing
the grotesque, throbbing mass from
my arm's end.  Curiously, the moment
this plan of limbic separation was
annulled, to my horror I instantly
and completely experienced the
overstimulation of every sensory
input node by the entirety of
blooming sage - seemingly a
biological reward from my ever-
expanding and powerful "guests"
in its recognition of my
abandonment of the struggle
for the left half
of my upper torso.

My senses muted and
physical attributes swollen and
disfigured, most nights I lay
in repose - dreams of desert
flesh - my left hand - and
dead sage tumbling over
my dirt road thigh.
I wake sometimes immobile
in the filth of city night
and quietly laugh at the
retreating raucous discourse
of my now drab-green,
chlorophyll-stained teeth.