The Cedarville Review 2020

26 | THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW PSALM OF THE SICK AND UNCLEAN ABIGAIL SHAFFER Despair, let’s see what you have on me. Taking inventory: 1. (As always on these days,) my fingers are live wires. 2. The pain in my bloodstream is warm and carbonated. It is hot like cider; it sparks. 3. My neck is broken glass. 4. My bottom lip is leathery snakeskin, ready to molt, needing moisture. 5. My skin is damp; it is like sodden fruit, bruising on the ground after rain. 6. I smell humid and rotted— my sweat the most fermented I’ve ever been glazed with. Acidic. 7. The electric static of knives sharpening is rippling through my brain. So what? Damn you, despair! I laugh—oh yes, you are damned forever. And disease, you ravenous animal gorging on my flesh, feast away. You can only devour me for the shortest of my two lifetimes. Even if you continue to bring me to tears every night,