I used to paint my nails every month,
the night before chapel,
just to have something to scratch off the next day.
(Flakes of OPI No. 25 in the cracks of cheap pews)
Today I peeled the clear coat from my index finger in math
while I stared at a bottle of Diet Pepsi
Kept up at night by politics or teenage hormones, but usually both.
(Transferral: Catholic to Jewish, Madonna to Lindsey)
Steel replaced by fingertips, arms replaced by thighs.
A year ago, I wouldn't have believed I would be thinking of foreign policy puns at midnight,
even if Jesus himself had told me so.