"A facial disfigurement is the communications equivalent of 'noise.'" -Edward S. Dewke, Flake: Confessions of a Psoriatic

Synesthesia's sensory cross-
over might be required to hear
facial lesions erupt under
concealing creams that muffle
cries better than a closed fist.

Psoriasis, background static
of our lives, your knives serrate
any smoothness I might share.
Your shrieks tear through
my universe, shredding poise

that disintegrates with my skin.
Astronomers stare at the red-
shift, watching everywhere
break apart as far skies burst
into expanding galactic rifts.

On earth our small-scale
plaques redshift, separating
us from ourselves and the un-
afflicted, whose connections
are devoid of disfiguring noise.