The Perfect Hand

It was the hand holding the pen that grabbed inside my guts and started to squeeze.

That hand with the pure white fingernails, filed in their 180 degree arches, with the the perfect cuticles, not one hangnail in sight.

I hate the person that hand is attached to. The ease with which they show their hand. I want to punch their disembodied face.

They wreak of perfection. Of sanity. Of cleanliness. Of normalcy. Of, of, of.

I am none of that.

I pick the skin off the bottoms of my feet where my pathology will be the least noticeable.

But eventually I run out of real estate.

I become desperate with discomfort, dissonance and ultimately disgust.

I am disgusting.

I don’t have the gaping hole on my side anymore that no doctor could close. The hole that oozed my adolescence into oblivion. But I am just as repulsive as I ever was.

There is no more skin left to pull off my soles. My soul. My soulless saddened soles.

I begin on my thumbs.

At first it isn’t easy.

I may have to cut my skin to find an opening.

The irony of searching for another orifice when I had lived with one too many for three years of fucking torture.

I make the opening. And then I pull the skin back. As easy as peeling an apple. But there is a hint of pain to remind me.

Don’t get too comfortable. Don’t relax. Don’t breath too easily.

You are happy now. This is the most dangerous time of all. You will be punished for your bliss. You know you will.

So I pull a little more skin off. And then a little more. And then I pull too much and there is blood. And it hurts. And somehow the stinging makes me a little less terrified of what’s in store for me.

I’m happy to pay the price for my existence in blood and pain. It’s all I’ve ever known.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to barter my body parts for love, comfort and safety.

Some people aren’t so lucky.