Black lashes
blown off of a fingerpad that throbs
in tandem with an overharvested eyelid
flit to the floor—
wasted wishes
manufacted in mockery of dandelion's dance.
Keratin cracks
beneath the pressure of enamel,
exposing weak, watery skin
on trembling fingertips—
nervous nibbles
evolved into voracious, cannibalistic cravings.
Though hope
fractures under the weight of repugnant gazes
and my unsightly nubs grasp blindly for pigments to suppress
these habitual shames—
flesh forgives
more than the self, and, like a forest after a fire, it grows back.
It always grows back.
“It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”
— Lauren Oliver, Delirium
DELIRIUM
oxytocin on her sleeve
where she
dribbled;
bonnet bunched up
chucked in closet.
a harum-scarum skeleton,
big knobby head
on baptismal pillow.
its silk molding;
trichotillomania.
feverish chattering
of bony teeth,
always half-asleep.
the purring of a kitten,
warm with milk.
she’s verifiable.
7/22/2020
Delirium Poetry Contest
Kai Michel Neumann
It's not Halloween yet but I have a trich,
No treat. OCD. Since thirteen.
I pluck, I pull, I tweeze, rip, yank.
Hair, lashes, and brows.
Made me once feel so ugly underneath.
A nervous tick, a passerby of boredom. Still unsure.
What causes such a thing, many are unaware.
I am not even sure myself.
All I know is I overcame it after 9 years of struggle.
I feel beautiful again.
I feel like me.
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