I saw things
that weren’t there before:
mirages of pain
I was once blind to.
But now I look upon
the overweight girl,
etched in scars
that ladder down
her pleading arms,

and the woman,
tall and beautiful,
who smiles with life,
but who's arm is
a hidden stump,
twitching with longing
for fingers long-gone,

and I flinch from my
seat at the side of the road
at eye-contact
with the girl who
crosses without a glance,
and I see the tattoo
of a rose, covering
the healed gashes
on her wrists.

And I wonder,
why I never saw this pain
before I had to move
with the help of these wheels,
And strength of my fists.