The paper’s edge

slices

through skin, and it hurts.

Why does a tiny hand cut have the

audacity to hurt so much anyways?

There’s not even blood.  Calm yourself.

Time-lapse.  That little cut

transforms itself into a gaping wound on the

pointer finger of my right hand.  Now

there is blood.

Summoning brethren, an army of

angry red slashes align themselves with

natural creases, or they dig new ones.

Or sometimes it starts as clear little bubbles,

barely seen under the surface of skin but if

punctured or caught in the right way

the bulbous pockets burst and

weep translucent liquid, more disturbing

than the blood.  Spreading from

the right pointer finger to the right thumb, to the left thumb, to the top edges of the right palm;

they feel like a disease.  

A mixture of grooved red openings,

tiny protruding clear bubbles, and peeling flesh.  

One doctor called the eczema

skin asthma

which makes sense because for days

I suffocate my fingers in bandages and

for nights, in gauze.

I strangle my hands as if doing so

would make the cuts and bubbles disappear.

I hate them.  Ugly creatures.

Yet my hands create such

beautiful works.

Paintings, knitted scarves, swirling wire jewelry, letters.

I make music

with ruined instruments.