Her journey along the path overgrown
with Honey Locust trees
has written storied lines of braille on her skin.

Pyschogenic scratches
from Nettle leaves
lead her twitching fingers
to healing wounds precariously,
but the black swan -
on edge, instinctively initiates
  biting feather-plucking.

Eyes blinded by glasses
of distorting mirrors,
while seeking hurried healing
for her molehill blemishes -
scabbed mountains, still bleeding
surface on her torn flesh from scratch.

Ruffled by waves
of dopamine flowing through her,
  she capitulates to the itching urge
to purge her raw blistered lips with hyperactive fingernails 
digging deeper,
and the deeper she digs
the more there is to see.

Deep in the hole that she dug herself into,
  and still digging -
weighted with all that she carries,
climbing up and out is less likely
  than the sky falling down to her level.

Revolving ripples on her pond
rip bomb-dropped holes
through the formication fabrications 
of aftershock scratches in a circling
  causal nexus.

My swan hibernates and sings
under my nurturing wings,
still lighting up the lakeside nest with a feathered flair
that glides in glimmering grace.

In a bandaged embrace within my arms,
her wounds are dressed and nursed -
I hope for her swansong slash,
before a gash rips
irredeemably deeper.