Nerves. Ending.

[sozialchamaleon]

Once when I was seven
I slipped and cut my ear open
and had to get four stitches.
My mother held my hand
and looked into my eyes
and lied to me,
saying that I wasn't getting stitches,
that the pain I feel isn't that bad.
I am sixteen when I buy shoes with wheels on them.
On the commute between school and work
a rock lodges itself in my shoe,
bringing me to the ground
as a bottle slices open my finger.
I was rushed to the hospital
but needed my mom to sign some paperwork.
She eventually got there.
Now I only feel my finger
when it gets cold and it swells
and stings under that scar.
Again, eighteen,
I am with my mother,
making her laugh as we exchange jokes.
I sneeze.
I throw my head down.
Dramatic.
I raise my head back up
to feel
and see
and smell
the blood rushing from my face.
I had broken a wineglass on my eyebrow.
My brow is scarred
and numb to the touch.
And as I write this
I touch my forearm
and mourn the nerve endings
whose lives ended
when they touched the heater
in my new house,
the house my mom is cleaning right now
as she build bridges
from old to new.