
Epidermis​
I force air into the tube of orange rubber with four and a half pumps,
Slip the hand pump into my over-sized clown pocket, and tie the balloon off.
I twist off three small sections, cradling them in my palm as they’re formed,
Then twist the first and third twists together, leave a space, and repeat.
If I get the proportions right, it’s a giraffe,
If not,
It’s a dog.
The rubber screams
Between my fingers as I twist, and twist,
And twist.
The little girls at my feet clap their hands over their ears.
I hold the balloon at arm’s length, and pull a face.
It explodes,
Decorating the courtyard in latex confetti.
I make a pink balloon into a beagle riding a motorcycle instead.
***
Only losers work in supermarkets
Full time.
I am a loser.
I make muffins with fifteen kilos of cream cake mix, and six litres of egg,
From a box.
I make icing with a sack of suspiciously starchy powder they claim is sugar,
And a block of soft, rendered fat.
I use a mixer that is taller than I am, and
My boss bullies me,
For getting batter on my hat.
I wash dishes, I wash dishes, I wash dishes, I wash dishes.
My knuckles turn red, and hurt.
They don’t get better.
The first doctor calls it eczema. Gives me one percent
Hydrocortisone cream.
I wear thin rubber gloves,
To keep the batters that are mixed in bowls, balanced in
Rubbish bins
Clean.
The red spreads and itches.
Pockets of clear fluid appear,
Deep inside my hands, between dermis and epidermis,
They swell and burst,
Or they don’t, growing, hurting and slowly turning yellow, until I pop them myself,
Leaving deep holes in my flesh.
Body fluid leaks from my hands like sweat.
I peel my gloves off and my skin hangs from my fingertips,
Frayed.
My sister sees, and starts crying, in a public place.
The second doctor calls it dermatitis. This means, a skin illness.
This means nothing.
I wear sterile cotton gloves under the
Rubber ones,
To soak up the sweat,
And fluid.
The cuffs get caked in chocolate syrup and yellow muffin batter.
I take pills, sometimes thirty a day,
Painkillers, anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, Vitamin E, steroids.
I am afraid that the cocktail makes my ears burn,
And destroys my immune system, but at least I can sleep,
For a few hours, without waking to fingernails clogged with blood and skin
I tore up while
Scratching in my sleep.
The skin over my knuckles swells and hardens,
It stops stretching, and
Splits open
When I turn a door knob, or
Use a pen.
I can’t hold a fork without
Bleeding,
So I eat in my room,
Where no one sees me eating
With my hands.
I sit on the floor,
Drag my wrists over the carpet, whimpering,
Loving the carpet burn sting
The itching away, for a moment.
And the red spreads.
I leave white dustings of dead skin behind
Everywhere I go.
I hide,
I wear evening gloves during the day.
The third doctor says my immune system is shot, and if
I get a cold, or a stiff neck, I have to call an ambulance,
Immediately,
Because it is probably meningitis.
The fourth doctor sends me
To a specialist.
In a hospital,
They strap square test patches to my back.
It’s so tight I cannot move, I need help getting dressed.
When they peel the strapping away I am a field of red dots on white,
They draw on me with black ink that stains my clothes
And forbid me from bathing for another three days.
The specialist declares
I am allergic to latex.
And recommends I quit my job.
I quit my job.
***
I feel so much better. I am not a loser. My life gets better.
I forget about it all,
A child asks me to blow up their balloon, and I do it. In three breaths,
I remember, and I stop.
I have blistering inside my mouth and I cannot fill my lungs.
The fifth doctor charges seventy dollars for the appointment,
I sit in his office, struggling to breathe and talk at the same time,
He recommends I breathe into a paper bag
If I start to hyperventilate.
***
In shopping centres children swing
balloon topped sticks into the faces of passers-by.
I dodge around them, try to hold my breath.
Strangers ask if I am afraid of balloons.
Some of the people who love me, think this is funny.
But I am sad that no child of mine, can ever
Have balloon animals, gumboots, or a basketball.
***
My skin gets better. Autumn comes and it gets worse.
It gets better.
Bubbles of fluid come
and then go. The patch of dead
skin in my palm grows for months, takes over my hand,
And then heals in a week.
It gets worse.
I wake up with lips and eyelids swollen and peeling.
My red skin splits open while I write. And now I can do nothing
about the wounds because
band aids contain latex.
The sixth doctor holds my hands in hers,
Turns them over, runs her thumb down my fingers,
Pressing hard,
Holds my palms up to the light.
Sends me to a specialist.
The second specialist says,
This is just my skin now,
It’ll never go away and
It won’t leave scars,
on the surface.