Purple Onion Girl

I peel off my epidermis.

it pinches, bunches, ripples at the edges 

just as a rotten onion

pulls back its naked layers before being tossed out.

this is me trauma dumping, avoiding the game

sitting this one out, jamming the safety

setting up the space so I can breathe.

i believe the skin accumulating underneath my fingernails

would corroborate Freud’s theories of repression.

the flakes of dry cells raked up with each scratch

push intense thoughts of loneliness

charged seething

and chronic emptiness to the deepest layer

of my arm

–call it hypodermis

call it blue bruising, call her a purple onion girl.

I once developed a hematoma 

that I wanted to open up and bleed out.

the pressure hurt.

I look back and wonder what those consequences

would have been.

who would have saved me if the bleeding had never stopped?

who would save me now?

that’s the thing about peeling onions.

it does come with some flashbacks

and while you can forget about the physical pain,

your eyes will swell and cry.

that damn pungency.

that damn trauma.