Too Much Information

You sent me a message from your skin
too dark to see if you’re calling me
but each cell of my bones jangles
your eyes touch mine, too wetly.

Dankness possesses my skin
but the skin’s not really me,
it's porous, protects against
nothing – everything gets in.

You want me to remember –
was I there the first time?
Those other times all stacked like cards?

I can sense the bruises
of your moods that will turn brown,
I'm the wrong way round
when you say I don't feel
but I hear your hairs scream
at the touch of your brush.

Things so insistent I see them
scuff rising from leather grain,
oil rainbows in fraying water,
dust in sun, competing voices shrill, machines bark
warnings, smells transform to touch, I flinch,
suck in so they're shouting in my head.
I haven't even left the house.

Don't make me shower,
that sound like hoovering
the earth out hollow, battering me
with sharp water swords.
Sssh, sssh you say as I shriek,
shriek, shriek for silence.

You say you understand.
You can't – there is no route to find
with your one-sense filtered mind –
you’ll never find your way
around my fractured currents.
I leave no personal mark in time.