New Skin

Finding the formula for form, I quietly mixed concrete in my kitchen sink. Three cups of burned coffee beans in my stomach turned my hands into dying cicadas and turned tongue into something a seizing man would chew on.

New sensitive skin is what I wanted mixing with blood engorged forearms. Outside the clouds steal color from land, sinking closer with weight. Peeled gloves off and dipped naked hands into the sink. Smearing and spreading, covering near-complete- face spared.

Padded out to the backyard to lay out in the greyness, skin scalding to sensitivity. I toast luxuriously.

~

Wincing, pushing red moist arms into polyester flammable sleeves. Duct taping something to the inside of my leg and more polyester pulled over sensitivity. Skin screams. Tears drain into sinuses and I know I've succeeded.

Stares at the metro stop. People move away. I twitch too much, giggling at my own silly wiggle. Into the train, sit down next to someone who gets up. To the third stop.

Out of the warm, humid underground and into twenty degrees. Needles of windchill through fabric, and my lips tremble like static into a smile.

Past bouncers, into blacklight. The backs of my hands fluoresce in their red wetness. And I'm on the dance floor, sweating in pain. Oh, but the new sensitive skin is There.

She sees me and my extreme movements. Moves like wobbling kelp through the spiral light. Hands on me. Notices the bulge of the duct taped object. Bites her lower lip. Blue bangs that resonate in the blacklight. Hair cut like a spiral staircase. She touches me like a raw power cord. Likes my reaction.

Piston push of metallic oily bodies and alcohol away from the station: away from the third stop to home. Kicked the flat door off its hinges. She carried me flopping like a near dead salmon on a riverbank. Dropped into the abyss of the couch.

Scissors. The edge runs from ankles to crotch. She's smiling. She likes my skin. Rips the cucumber off. Coat and shirt marooned in the middle of shag. Something grows in the lavalamp.

Later mixing concrete in the sink together. Twenty degrees outside but the sun is warm on new sensitive skin. Tender hands smearing paste on skin. Steaming cups of coffee on the counter.