That day when we first spoke,
your first words to me were
'Your fingers look cute'.
To which I replied
that I didn't think so,
that my fingers were too thick and my nails shapeless.
You said that they were
the most beautiful fingers
you'd ever seen
and
pink nail paint suited them.
That day,
I fell in love
with
my fingers, pink nail polish and you.

Every time we met, you made it a point to tell me that
my fingers were beautiful,
rubbing against them with yours and smiling that crooked smile of yours
when I blushed.

Each of our meetings, every step of our love story
was witnessed by that pink nail polish, as if to bear testimony to
our secret relationship.

That day when you confessed that there was someone else,
my fingers broke down before I could.
I asked you point blank
if
you'd been calling her fingers cute too. Your silence was chilling.

The pink nail paint bottle is empty, just like my life without you.

'Now, who's there to call us lovely?'
my fingers ask me.
I have no reply.

whenever i paint my nails i cannot help but
be reminded of the way you smoked cigarettes
because the fumes of the nail polish are
terribly toxic and yet i crave it because
some nights we would stay up all night--
you getting high on your cigarette daydreams
and me getting high on how happy you looked
with a death stick in your mouth,
i should've stopped you
i should've been there next to you, at the very
least in the back of your mind a warning, you
should've thought of me, you should've cared,
you should be right here next to me,
laughing because i got nail polish on my hand and
teasing me about how i should just give up
you should not have been driving home that night, you
should've known, you should've stopped--
months before that, you shouldn't have even
began drinking or smoking or even driving
for god's sakes you were only fifteen
and so was i, i was only fifteen, much too young
to fall in love, and much too stubborn to care

whenever i paint my nails i cannot help but
be reminded of you inhaling smoke from your
marlboro silver cigarettes and i cannot help
but make a mistake and stop midway and scrub it all
off because you are no longer there to tease me
about how i should just give up and i can no longer
get high from the image of the boy sitting on my
window sill, for he is now dead

(h.l.)

I like my bare feet
right in front of the fan.
It tickles,
the wind;
blowing kisses on my toes.
My toenails are red.
I'd just noticed; I'd forgotten
how I painted them shiny
as I hummed nonsense words.
It's chipping off now,
I'd have to repaint them.
Blue?
Purple?
No, I'll stick to red.
Red has many meanings
but I do not care much for them.
Some things are better left simple -
My toenails are just one of those things.