deserving; cage-rattling

I am pretty sure there are thumbtacks in my heels.
They grew up like children, like skyscrapers, like stubborn tree tendrils, they land with a gentle THWUMP in the cork of city/school/universe and make it difficult to leap without caution. They bleed. And they leak. Ooze? They're small. Microscopic; metaphor-sized, no one can see them, in fact, but they poke through favorite shoes and plant me far or near. I do not think they are autonomous. They loosen, like an iron joint being oiled, when packed inside during rainstorms or sustaining willing eye contact. They cannot dream. I have not always had them. Sometimes they twist like the top of a corkscrew and feign escape--but, BUT! they are always there when I wake up, ripping my cotton sheets and socks. They're an inconvenient truth but they are true, yup, I've just decided they're as real as tangerines and lines at Trader Joe's, I feel them now. I must be careful when I stand up in a few minutes to make more weak Blueberry tea, mustn't jump too hard off the mattress and scrape the tile.