The Splinter

Prologue

This is for Poppy’s #10 prompt, and Mikeydred’s Octoberon challenge. Join in the fun here!

Everyone has anxieties, figments of the imagination, like annoying splinters. How we respond to them makes the difference.

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It seemed like nothing—

a little wood, buried under skin.

I hardly sensed its bite,a jab, a murmur.

I allowed it to fester.

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But the nights grew long,

and in the silence, I felt it dig gently.

A single splint, it drove deeper,

through skin, through bone,

its quiet points biting into marrow.

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I pulled at it, took tweezers to the splint.

But it etched away from me,

scoffing each anxious pull,

moving just beyond my reach.

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Days became feverish.

Its image in the mirror, throbbing under my skin,

Greenish veins, now corrupt streams,

Winding through my fingers.

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A splinter—is it still a splinter?

Or something worse, a trespasser,

a thief of the mind?

I tugged at my skin, red stains on beige,

but saw no wood, no splint, no end.

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The splint widens the wound now,

my skin’s raw from my prying fingers,

yet it stays.

Was it ever there?

Perhaps it never was.