Continuous Passive Motion (Arun 14)

Continuous Passive Motion. I hear that and think of someone shrugging their shoulders over and over, or turning their hands palm up. Continuous Passive Motion. As I type this, I am strapped into a CPM, a machine whose sole purpose is to bend and straighten my knee. I am passive while the machine provides the continuous motion. I can’t say that I love this contraption, but I certainly appreciate it. My goal is to get up to 90° … and right now I’m at 88. I’ve got another 10 minutes to go tonight (3 times a day, 2 hours each time), so I’ll have no problem hitting my target.

It hasn’t been a great day. Started with enough pain to bring me, my sister and the physical therapist to tears. But we all got through it, and here I am. CPMing myself to sleep. And writing Aruns!

Tears
like these
remind me
of humanity,
fragility, strength.
Pain
like this
flares through me,
overly hot,
sharp, immediate.
“You’re
alive,”
it says, coy.
These tears, this pain,
the shards of that truth.

_____

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines.  Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).