because I sat under the showerhead
rightmost faucet thrown to boiling
trying for an hour to convince myself
it was the water trailing down my arms
not my shaking skin
my wet body is still a prince rupert’s drop
bulletproof in the head but weak
in the trunk even after a decade
of reenforcing glass
and welding silica
I don’t like the word autism
it leaves the taste of lemon cleaner
behind on my tongue from
the very first syllable because some things
just aren’t meant to be in your mouth
it feels foreign for being so simple
root word autos meaning self
automatic autograph autocratic
automaton some days clawing
words from my whirring throat
sometimes I want to hold my brain
aloft like hamlet and point with gusto
see? see that pucker? see this spot
that looks pinker than the rest?
here’s your dripping proof
evidence of all the moments spent
in the cold basin of a tub at birthday parties
hours under a faucet or tearing the carpet
at a standoff with the pills on my sidetable
ten bloody toenails and tissues
but in the eternal meantime
the baby bird says it’s sorry
apologizes for how long
it took for it to emerge
soaked from its broken yolk
and dry itself off
Dina Folgia is an MFA candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University. She was an honorable mention for the 2021 Penrose Poetry Prize, and a 2020 AWP Intro Journals Project nominee. Her work appears (or will be appearing) in Dunes Review, Stonecoast Review, Defunkt Magazine, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and others. She is a poetry editor for Storm Cellar. Keep up with her work at dinafolgia.com.
