Prick your fingers.

Put the points of leaves through the top layer of skin
No blood, unless you do it wrong
Prick them with safety pins
Safely, the irony is — that this is not safe
But it is not
Unsafe —
The metal is clean, the leaves are not
But the sensation is the same
A tugging,
The separation of one layer from the next
And the rendering of your hands
From human to tree
From human to machine
It soothes in a way, to see the minuscule loops
That remain