Sharps

I like the notion of the skin being breached so that change can be rendered to the organism. I like the idea very much, altho’ I fully recognize the malarial reality of the wrong kind of puncture, the bleedout reality of the wrong kind of slice. But here in my metaphorical LaLaLand, sharp things are pretty things that are also agents of change.

They’re interesting, those sharp things, because they can damage or repair. Scalpels, knives, needles can sever, slice, or pierce … for benign reasons or malign. And the sharps  found in nature — thorns, stingers, proboscides — are really delicious to comtemplate since they gon’ fuck you up if you’re on on the receiving end but they’re good and sweet for the bearer’s survival. You may curse the cactus that pricks your thumb or the porcupine that ruins your Sunday morning by necessitating a trip to the vet with poor spiked Rover, but can you blame them for wanting to defend themselves against the incursions of a cruel world? Rover’s only gonna get up in the grill of a porcupine once, unless Rover’s really stupid or really unlucky, so Rover transmogrifies from a dopey dog who thinks it would be fun to play with that big prickly thing to a more street-smart canine who knows better. Education is a beautiful thing and knowledge is power and sharps will make you smarter if they don’t kill you first.