chapped nom recovering 060327 ... kerry my hands feel like they did when i worked at the shelter, dried out and sprinkled with tiny cuts and scabs, knuckles like sandpaper. no amount of lotion helps. i would stand at the sink in the sleeping room and wash the dishes from last night's dinner, my hands accustomed to the scalding bleach water, and raye would sit on her bed and tell me about her former life how she grew up on a farm in ohio, rode horses, raised basenjis she lived so far out you could actually see shooting stars she's the one who gave me my favorite jeans, a pair of high waist levi's she got with her monthly clothing voucher. you gotta cuff em at the bottom, she said, and crouched to do it for me then came back ten minutes later saying, uncuff 'em, barb says it looks stupid. my lips are so chapped, as much as they were that winter, and no amount of chapstick helps. headphones on, head-banging alone at 2AM in the industrial kitchen-- drinking cup after cup of tea cup after cup of cheap coffee reading through the night beside the space heater, fetching snacks for nancy who could never sleep-- "all i have is peanut butter crackers and oatmeal raisin cookies, will that do?" (as if there are other options) making sure cindy's lunch is packed since she has a job now sitting with polly outside in the mist at 4am (the deepest darkest part of the morning), having a smoke and listening to her stories-- her mother with the red lipstick and glamorous bags and heels, the only person she says really loved her, and now that she's dead polly has no one (no one except me, then) she used to be a journalist, she told me, she wasn't always like this, she had her own house and car and she wrote poetry late at night, she read camus the skin around her eyes was always a little damp-looking, as if she were on the verge of tears or had just finished sobbing, the rest of her all dried up (i know because i changed her bandages, no one else would) her pudgy hands were cracked, her lips thin and chapped same old purple dress every day, same old cheap cigarettes same old stories about how we used to be 220126 ... unhinged (coconut oil does wonders for all kinds of skin ailments) 220127 ... kerry (good idea! i have a jar but it's like... 5 years old or something. i'll try it out!) 220127 what's it to you? who go blather from