You Could Almost Call This a Confession but I’m Too Tired
To Offer Up Any Shame
by Flora Snowden
after Leila Chatti
The truth is
sensation is a practice
I’ve grown resentful of
The truth is, I lost taste for it before I’d got it past my teeth
or maybe I lost taste when it was forced past my teeth
The truth is that it's both
steady fingers pressing into frozen milk skin
It’s interesting, the way a feeling changes
when it’s prescribed to you
the curve of my spine in the reclined patient chair
Now I take sensation like a stimulant drug
and touch like a painkiller
My mother’s friend once told me
that she thinks people have gotten too comfortable
with pain medicine, said “We pop some pills at the
first trace of discomfort,” so,
rigid shoulder blades digging into worn gray vinyl
I’ve been careful
avoided the remedy until its necessity grew
loud enough to demand attention
strained leg muscles shuddering above sterile paper
The truth is I spend a lot of time numbing
a lot of time not thinking about the seven trillion
nerve endings that dedicate their days to
reminding me that I feel
the cold crinkle when they finally return to each other
a lot of time pretending I don’t need this body
pretending that I live despite it instead of within it
bare feet slipping past pink lace back to a laminate floor
I’ve been pretending that this skin is irrelevant
when really the whole point is this body
gently shaking fingers pulling the metal of ice door closed
the whole truth
is this body