Here are the roots of it:

frayed wires in my wrists.

Deep under calloused skin

I found them, right where the nerves

should have been.

‘Til now I’d only felt my blood buzz. You don’t

feel each shock when wire teeth burn

you all over. So

when I pull them out, one-by-one,

they sting hard.

Sun-blinded into overexposure,

electric-blue faces stain walls

a blink over white nothing, the same place

you’ll also return to. Strange,

what works its way below skin.

You only learn you’re man-made

with the membrane shorn.

Less afraid these days

now I’ve seen what’s beneath 

I duct-tape

tassel ends to tame them. When feeling comes

I polish copper ‘til it shines,

current channelled down my fingertips

so it all comes oozing out.

I gaze soft at each blue, let it burn low

then put polished coils to rest. I can look

at them, now I tend these afterimages—my archive

in daylight and dark.