It's been three days now

It's been three days now.

The skin around it swelled up angry,

red at first, now more purple,

like my body is trying to say

this thing shouldn't be here

without actually removing it.

I got the needle out yesterday,

tried to be surgical about it,

to dig under the edge where

the black speck lives,

but it just pushed deeper,

and the flesh closed back over,

and now I can't even see it clearly,

just know it's there the way

you know a word is stuck in your teeth

but your tongue keeps missing it.

The internet says to draw it out

with heat, with salve, with patience.

Patience. Like my body is going to

slowly accept this foreign thing

and spit it out on its own schedule.

I keep pressing my fingernail into it,

not hard enough to bleed,

just hard enough to remind myself

it's still there, still winning,

still exactly where it wants to be.

My body is keeping score.