sykur

Sugar can be wrenched into extraordinary shapes, some translucent and others pearly. It takes some doing. After more than a few minutes spent coaxing out peppermint ropes, an ache forms in my shoulder and my hands sting from what had been too-high heat.

But that is wrong: I have not been scalded. I learn this when a broad strip of my own skin drops lightly onto the counter. Looking at my hand, I see it has been pulled from the inside of my thumb between the first joint and the web. The lozenge-shaped absence is un-wound-like. There is no blood or even a seepage of plasma or other moisture, only a neat window through the epidermis. The dermis is identical; the same whorls and lines cross it. It is only darker, pinker, softer, and for a moment I feel that bandaging it would be silly.

But the pink diamond is also infinitely more sensitive. The air alone hurts it, as if its lying only infinitesimally closer to the heart makes the outside beyond endurance. I've found a layer of flesh not yet ready to face the world, not yet ready to take on being me.