I check my calendar for the next time 
my father will see me. Not for many months. 

I tell myself it’s for writing inspiration. 
Really, I just want to know what it’s like 
to break myself down. I think 
about my high school teammates, 
the lithe runners who bore bare calves 
like a medal already won. 

I think of her complaints 
of stubble when she kissed my face. 
I inspect my body for faults, find many: 
acne scarred skin, strangely jagged toes, 
the warped shape of my face in profile. 
I take a long, indulgent shower.

I blast breakup songs and think 
about what it takes for a body
to be unregulated. I am a house. 
I knock down walls, discover rats
and a scar on my knee I had forgotten. 
I nick skin. A bloom of blood 
matches the moldy shower curtain. 

The electric razor dies halfway up 
the second leg. I wait, cold and naked, 
for it to charge. I turn over 
my half-newness in my mind. 
Hair falls in silky avalanche. 
The drain is a mess of me.

I feel the softness of my skin. Softness, 
on occasion, I call weakness. A rash 
splatters my thighs where I got lazy 
with shaving cream. I live in bliss 
for about twenty hours, drive around 
feeling sun-cooked, the slick touch 
of conditioned air. 

Then I am a cactus-man.
I am reverse acupuncture.