Sensitive Heart

There are days
that I can feel the nerves in my spinal cord jingle
like car keys hitting together on a heavy carabineer.
Each piece of harsh, cold metal clangs against the next,
scratching, cold, unfeeling, loud,
like the key ring of the janitor, one key for every door,
every clink and clack sends nerves running down my back,
their feet pound my bones with steel-toed boots,
those nerves waste no time in hammering relayed messages from my body to my brain
from my body to my brain
from my body to my brain
those nerves
run potholes in the pathways they travel most
like deer paths turned 6 lane highways
like my mind
will turn not just molehills into mountains
but dust into desert,
raindrop into waterfall
my mind makes garlands of forget-me-nots
tied to old reminders:
I try to make them handsome;
even doctors
cannot see these freaks of nature inside my skin--
these are not metaphors
but ways of turning all that is
into something beautiful
my heart can understand.