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.