o-vana:

RIND 

The oil in my pores has made my whole body burn
like a gas lamp / a lantern with an integument casing,
grease-stained-coat that lets way to fire too easily.
How much scrubbing will get this off? How much
rubbing down? Plaster mud to the surface of my cheeks,
then my jaw, neck, the crook there, right there,
where the redness gives into bleeding / because I think
I am still bleeding. The never-bitten-down nails.
The grown-out weapons that rip pulpous parasites
because I never remember how they are me. This oil
that I do not want / that leaves me to burn, to redden,
to fry under the sun like fish soaked in lard, like an egg
on the asphalt in summer, cracked open, leaves me
cracked open / makes me aware somehow of this thing
that I do not want / because I do not want it. I grapple
with the rind like fighting tooth and nail will give me
anything but a lop-sided smile and a hangnail,
like denying that I allowed the vermin to grow will make
them any less / grown / will make the oil any less
burnt.