drought

In this drought I go quietly mad. My skin hardens. I prickle. I flinch if there is the possibility of contact of any kind. I should have kissed the cheek of that lady the other day but I knew that my flesh would have turned to dust and crumbled away from my face. I do not want to see my friends who may want to touch me on my arm or lean against me or say some kind word that will make the tears scrape from my eyeballs like drifts of sand. I am drying out, as in detox. As in the hideous screams of junkies who feel that their bowls have turned to acid.

First there was a period of sensual overload when even a whiff of the right kind of pheremones would turn my sunflower head towards the promise of flesh. Now there is this locking away, this snapping shut. I am all carapace. I will be not be opened without a great deal of pain and perhaps a shucking knife.