wasps

Sitting in the Georgia sand, grains fall through my fingers while wasps whirl in harmony around my head;

My parents drink and smoke with friends, jitterbugging to Elvis around the cramped living room of a gray Army apartment;

I sit off to the side, a crumpled tissue next to me, a forgotten piece of someone else’s life.

The steps to the dance evade me. I see them. They’re in my mind but my body never hears the music. 

My skin, a thin and cracked shell, blocks light and connection, holds in feeling.

Years of faith and hope can’t cope with the broken ability to follow the rhythm of others.