[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” specialty=”off”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title title=”on” meta=”on” author=”on” date=”on” categories=”on” comments=”on” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”background” parallax_effect=”on” parallax_method=”on” text_orientation=”left” text_color=”dark” text_background=”on” text_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.9)” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” parallax=”on” /][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#ffffff” show_divider=”off” height=”15″ divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” disabled_on=”on|on|off” /][et_pb_audio _builder_version=”3.0.85″ title=”Today is the kind of day when my skin doesn’t fit right” artist_name=”a. markov” album_name=”365’s” audio=”https://www.abigailmarkov.com/wp-content/uploads/today-is-the-kind-of-day-my-skin-doesnt-fit-rigtlht.mp3″ background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”left” title_level=”h6″ title_font=”||on||||||” /][et_pb_text background_layout=”light” _builder_version=”3.0.85″]
Today is the kind of day
when my skin doesn’t fit right,
when it’s a little too tight
over my shoulders and forehead
and especially my hands,
which refuse to follow directions,
and entirely too loose around my neck,
and the undersides of my arms,
which feel a bit like
they are sliding off
like skin-turned-slime
in some horror movie.
It is
an entirely discomforting feeling,
and it’s distracting,
this disorienting sensory input
that makes it hard to concentrate
when I feel like
I keep having to readjust
to get those slumps of skin
back into place.
The constant sensory nagging
of something not right
from my own body
wears me out
but mostly my patience,
and I’m short tempered
and more frazzled
and more scattered
and
ohsovery
angry.
It’s as if there is someone
who sits there all day
and taps you
and you can’t get rid of them.
Just from inside your own skull.
I find myself wanting to
scream
at everything,
and it seems as if
everything knows it.
Everything then
moves in slower motion
and I’m sitting here
in skin sliding off me
splitting breaking in other areas
and bones that seem
to be vibrating just
a tiny amount
entirely too aware
of it all
while my computer freezes
and phone restarts
and people
just won’t stop talking to me
after I’ve already acknowledged
and answered them
and time slows down more
and I am stuck inside it all
just trying
not to scream.
And no one else realizes it.
So I repeat a litany
of things-that-are-good
to counter it all;
how funny Pepper the Chicken looks molting,
and how she’s still happy;
how we have our first five silkie eggs
in the bitty incubator
in more hopes of
tiny fluffs of joy-on-two-legs-with-feathers;
how my habanero plants are producing,
and there are peppers in the dehydrator;
how the recent work is well recieved
on all fronts;
how I got to spend most of today
sleeping
until I couldn’t sleep anymore;
how I have knitting and
terrible super hero Netflix tonight
with my husband who loves me
even if he keeps talking to me
long after I’ve answered his question
about why he asked the question in the first place;
for friends who take shared neuroses
and make them hilarious
and simultaneously
probably X-rated.
And I repeat them
each time
I hit the point
where peeling my
sloughing off skin
seems like a viable option
and it helps.
Not gratitude,
in the airy-fairy sense
of the Law of Attraction way,
but reminders
of good feelings
to tip the sensory scales
in favor of joy.
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