you, you’re an ingrown toenail. you’ve

grown so far into yourself that it doesn’t hurt anymore. (the metaphor

can be extended: parts of you need to be removed, filed down, rounded off.

you need to be made gentle again.)

you’re the stomach that eats its own lining, the fox that chews through its paw:

and it gets you as little. you’re biting at your lips,

you’re scratching at your neck, you’ve worried yourself sick. you’re

going to be fine. you, you’re the cancer

so vast it grows its own cancers. of course, of course, you’re going to be fine.


you never learned how not to be alone.