Scritch scritch.
It’s under my skin. It’s under my – scritch scritch scratch – Gah! Skin! I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it does, but what it does it does under my skin. Then my skin gets to itching ‘til I scratch the scritching. Hey, but then it starts bitching all over again! You laugh at my problem, but that’s not the problem. The real problem is not my skin nor the scritch, no – scratch – the problem resides in my hands and their itch. Their itch to scratch! Not a knuckle is scritched – you’ll find no scratch across my wrist – it’s the itch within themselves that gives my eye this twitch! Their very desire to scratch is the itch I must match – scratch scratch scratch. But they don’t give me a chance, leave me out of their dance – they itch to scratch without my consent, then go and give me odd scrapings and a blistering rash. They reach where they shouldn’t, they latch when I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t tell you if that’s good or that’s bad.
It goes on and on – scritchy scritch scratch – until I am absolutely sure: hands are just hands. They shouldn’t itch on their own! This scratching’s all mine or I’ve nothing to own. So, good or bad, who’s to say? But they’re wrong over right by every mark on my face.
So, in a last ditch to ditch my hands’ itch, I lopped them both clean right off at the wrist. Tied a blade to my head, gave a guillotine-butt, then Voila! their itch and mine, no longer conjoined. A simple solution…and such fast relief! There they flop ‘cross the floor, overcome with desire. I wish them safest travels for another Itched to hire. As for me, I’m now free to scratch itches that are mine. Indeed, I have been freed! To – scratchity – scritch –
Ah.
SCRATCHITY – SCRATCH
AHYAHYAH!
Damn it! – SCRATCH – Where have my hands gone? – SCRITCH – Get on back here, now, tout suite! These stumpy, weak massages cannot do the trick!
Morning's Early Dark 