HSP

My porous neurons slurp up every noxious drop of nuance.

“Pause-to-check” is carefully printed inside my eyelids.

I stand all day on the edge of a decision,

Mouth shut and guts swimming.

One cup of “oops” spilled on me in the womb,

And it soaked into the threads of my nerves.

Tendencies now roll like tides.

In a world sodden with sense,

Visceral piques splash against the folds of my mind—

A pencil pecking against a desk jabs at my eardrums.

A shotgun cough firing off from across the room

Crashes down my spinal cord.

Every mistake immerses my anatomy,

Stirring the shameful brine of public tears.

I’ve always been somewhere between a shy, little flaw

And a girl without skin.