Acupunctural

She inquires, as she prepares to insert acupuncture needles,

“How are you doing?”

I consider my response, wanting it to be helpful and clever.

I’m like that, or try to be.

“Something crawled up my skin yesterday,” I start.

“And now it wants to crawl all over the freakin’ place,

and I know you can help. Right?”

She asks, “Well, how were you before this snag?”

I think snag is such an apt term.

It sounds temporary yet tenaciously tangled.

I offer, “I was ok until this thing!”

I’ve come to know that I trust this treatment.

Ancient wisdom meets medicine seeking to clear the energy pathways,

which right now are clogged with floating substances

made of anger, resentment, disbelief and distrust.

I sit and allow the real or imagined clearing,

the shrinking, nearly disappearing or evaporating tangible tension.

This hour I sit, with my mind still spinning,

but not being able to check a text or answer a call,

or look something else up.

A fighting chance to leave the fight

for another day, another night

or let it go completely and be alright.