Life doesn’t always have to be this way
Dangling in this televised fear
Like a hand caught in a beartrap
Barely holding on
Cords of tendons and tiny strips of skin
Twitching weakly
From the fading current
Carried in the last unsevered
Fibre of nerve

Finally, the hand stops moving
But the arm still spurts
Red life
Muscles pulsing in vain
Trying to close
A phantom hand.
Trying to will itself back together.
Standing there, bleeding out
The owner of the arm doesn’t move
They silently hope to be put together again
No point in running for their life
They died the moment their hand got severed.