Angry Red Tears

I’ll often start beside my thumb,
Ignore the pain and wish it numb
As I bite careful into flesh,
Or else pick at it with a nail
Bring to the surface hint of tail
To grip and pull it back.

These lines of red, they mark the wound
But injury real is hid within:
Their minds, their musks, their souls, their grin,
Live comfortably beneath my skin.

I ask you tear and claw my back,
Hardness spiking with each pain;
But really it’s to let them out
Before their selves full crush my brain.

In better times I like to think
It’s not my skull that starts to shrink
But more my brain outgrows its nest
And ranges forth at their request
Alike the wand’ring hermit crab – that brave crustacean
Bold enough to live in homes not of its own creation.

I envy that. Its simple choice.
My mind is torn between two poles.
From far, potential stalks my thoughts
With slavering jaws not quite like wolf.
A mind to conquer, hold and bite and push my fingers through your hair and pull at it and hear you moan and feel that pleasure mixed with fear.
Yet near an apathetic tide sweeps in and drowns the beast beneath the flood.

I should want to give it air but yet I don’t.