Synapse/Impulse, Beck Chason-McCarthy

They say to hold ice in your palm

until it goes numb

They clearly don’t know

that numbness and pain

are fraternal

not identical

They say to snap rubber bands

Hair ties live on my wrist, binding it smaller

Like tucking something in your back pocket

A surprise tool for later

I can only think if my skull tension

is like a Venetian Disco ball, reflective

I grow my nails out

from where I’ve bitten them to the quick

for the past 22 years

stack them like spoons and dig like spades

Use a shattered 13th birthday kaleidoscope to draw the first line

Chicken out at the sight of oxygenation

Celebrate when I make it to 21

And tattoo celestial bodies

on either side of my mistake

The Originator loved it

If only a girl from Pennsylvania

who didn’t know the etiquette

hadn’t stolen a transformative pause

Before I turned it indelible