thick skin

better late than never

to have acquired that thick skin

as she spent so many years envying those

alligators

while tearing up her own insides

like she had purposefully swallowed

razor blades

watching the world round her enclose &

her options for being “saved”

dwindle---

soon

away

with

the

men in her life who had brought with them an

inferiority complex &

soon

away

with

the

women in her life who had instilled within her a

basket of groundless & ever-multiplying aesthetic solutions, yes,

better late than never to

gut them all out like a specially designed grapefruit spoon does

the flesh of the grapefruit or

sharp wit & truth does the

dumbfounded liar---

not waiting for that sickle of death

locked in a cage

“measuring out her life with coffee spoons,”

but instead,

now more than ever

in the face of constant doctor’s calls &

growing prescriptions needing to be filled,

she beats relentless at the

speed bag

snorting up phlegm &

spitting on this life that has brought her enough grief

to have already buried someone whose skin had stayed

thin.