When my needle

When my needle
breaks your skin
it stings

Your eyes clench
as your keloid
swells with steroid—

I only know
you as the 22
year old

black male
with gun shot
wounds

trusting me
with a body
broken

by our city—
It must burn
and boil

like a dark cloud
steeped in
thunder and bolts

1. Keloids – scars that overgrow and are difficult to treat, often requiring multiple visits/steroid injections
2. I work in a hospital in the Austin neighborhood