band-aid

these days you sink wherever you can
except around me, firm in the sentiment that
we should all get away from each other
while it will still hurt, like a band-aid
that's been on just long enough to
rip out some of your leg hairs
upon removal, and promptly be thrown
into the garbage;
otherwise, without your knowledge,
it slides off into a middle of a pool,
picked up later all soggy
by some disgusted passerby.
we all spend a certain amount of time
soggy, floating underwater, but not quite
sunk deep enough to reach solid tile.
you keep me floating
above the bottom, but not quite
standing straight, and i do the same for you,
so we do not entirely sink but neither
are our heads above water and
we do not entirely breathe.
because of this my favorite days
are those when things are calm
as band-aids floating in the empty pool
can not be greeted with disgust when there are no swimmers,
and as i firmly close my eyes and feel
the hair around my head moving subtly with
the minute currents of stagnant bodies of water.
submerged, i can appreciate the solitude
that comes with feeling everywhere on your body
the consistent texture of water,
a calm sense of nothingness,
despite my vague awareness that you,
somewhere, are doing something to prevent me
from drowning,
or the sense that one day i will
have to pick myself out of here as
the responsible swimmer undergoes
the disgust of throwing away the soggy band-aid
so that no one else will have to encounter it.
we should all get away from each other
while it will still hurt, you insist.
when band-aids in pools slip off without notice
they sit so stagnant and become
a burden for the responsible swimmer,
losing a band-aid in a pool
means nothing to the person who needed it,
and who should therefore deal with it.
to rip out a few of your leg hairs
and expose not-quite-healed cuts right by
your knee may not be pleasurable
but sometimes it is necessary
to feel pain rather than to feel nothing.