I Call in Conflict with my Hands (Excoriation)
Alyx Chandler
you’re the enemy of my lineage
pickers & pullers & biters
people made to
clean their habits
hide their claws & cute
turn their face aghast & say
I can’t even imagine
who would hold these hands
lesion loved & scarred up
ramshackle & wrecked
I flake confidence halt healing
& never play pretty
but pluck past pink skin
bloom it red-bumped
an eyesore split open
into a gouge
& blemish
is too sweet a word
for what forces a flinch
I want
to be right (& less
self-righteous)
to trust that beauty
ain’t shit but it exists
& insists of course
clings like a scab
stubborn on skin
Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a writer from the South who received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she taught composition and poetry. She is a publicist for Poetry Northwest, a reader for Electric Literature and former poetry editor for CutBank. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Cordella Magazine, Greensboro Review, SWWIM, Anatolios Magazine and elsewhere. Read more at alyxchandler.com.