Callus

Photo from toledosword.com

measure me lightly
my callus is thick
adding more than
exists underneath

but it’s not really me
just borrowed old
toad skin
I woke up to find
long decades ago
building layers
this alien tissue
preventing my
conscience to bleed

but it’s not really me
something out there
some hidden unbidden
paternalist force who
for reasons unknown
marked my tenderness
masculine weakness
unfit for the savaging
precincts I roamed
and so it inflicted me
horning my surfaces
calcified keratin fed
this insensitive growth
this integument
sealing my essence
presenting a hardness
not held in my heart

but it’s not really me
though I used it
to gain my guerilla
advantage in wars
mercenary in nature
obtaining my violent
victories keeping
detached from the
blood and the blame
by a distance as thick
as this organic armor

but it’s not really me
so don’t hold it against me