Carrie Weis
Sensitive AF
Brush lips along my neck, and a red ribbon
snake lifts from my throat, hisses heat at the touch
for minutes after. I swallow the word “enough”
at the hairdresser, the dentist, the gynecologist, my skin
stinging with the slightest graze, withering pink under pressure.
I can’t listen to The NeverEnding Story theme song without crying.
Can’t even think about The Velveteen Rabbit without tearing up. I also cry
when watching Steve Irwin interviews, tears ribboning
along my eyelashes, my chest heaving like a hive. No pressure,
my former boss would say, which really meant, Why are you so touchy?
In early 2020, I spent most of my time biting my skin
raw over work and burying my feelings in enough
metro cars to reach every tunnel beneath the city. Spent enough
time watching animal documentaries that the cries
of a gazelle dying in the mouth of a cheetah were like sirens skinning
the air outside of my apartment window: normal. In the ribboned
moonlight through my blinds, I watched a video of a man touching
a snake’s head, attaching tiny vibrometers across a pressure
of braille on its body. Instead of hearing, snakes can sense pressure
through their skulls. If the vibration is strong enough,
their skeletons will respond to it first. Even bones know touch.
I think of idioms related to melodrama, pity, and all are rooted in crying:
cry crocodile tears, cry baby, cry the blues. Last week, a ribbon
of an old woman was weeping at the grocery store, her skin
puckering around her eyelids. I’m not like this, she said. I wish we could skin
away all we believe we should be and ask why we pressure
our own hands to our lips and hold back the ribbon
of our first truth: a howl, a sob. A sound that meant, enough.
Or, It’s not enough. Or, I feel something, and all I want to do is cry.
A snake’s body is flooded with touch
receptors. They can sense a change in temperature in a touch
or two of degrees. Outside it is snowing and my skin
bristles in the purple cold, and the crows cry
sharp as the wind pelting my face, a pressure
that reminds me even nature never wonders if it’s too much, or enough.
We are always told our bodies are the ribbon
tying together the pain, the fear, the yearning that pressures against our skin.
Let my cry cut me open. Let my chest be gaping enough
that the echoes of touch tremble my ribs. Let me shed my old self to ribbons.
Casey Reiland’s work has appeared in trampset, On the Seawall, Hobart After Dark, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, DC. You can find her on Twitter at @CaseyReiland.
Carrie Weis is an artist, writer, and educator. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Kendall College of Art & Design, and a B.I.S. degree in Studio Fine Art with a minor in Art History from Ferris State University. She is active in her studio practice attending residencies and exhibiting in solo and group shows. Her works have been published on book covers and in art and literature periodicals.