Some fingers have this tendency
to crack, snag, and rip themselves
to shreds.  A flurry of something like daisy
petals cling, infinite single cell threads
waiting for the right he loves me
not to fall apart.

Some fingers shed their tired
ridges in fluttering crescent smiles
peeling from the edges of soft pink nails.
They pull away like feathers ruffled
out of place in a sudden updraft,
bent at too-sharp angles.

Finger skin was always the strongest,
never flaking just because, but for the effort
of work and teeth.  Those hangnails bleed
strength.  They drip patience, hours
of work in restaurant sinks,
needlepoint and dresses.

They bleed music, lullabies.
A chorus of little sopranos sing
to tiny babies in cribs built
by driftwood scratched bone-smooth
and tough as chainmail.

For a baby, I am unkempt,
But for an adult, I am very unkempt.
People can tell me my age just by looking,
So when I bashfully admit I am 21,
I actually have no bash left,
Because I used all of it on my ***** sneakers and chipping nail polish,
and hangnails and tangled split ends in a scrunchie,
and leftover acne from the homecoming dance when I tried to erase it away with my mother’s makeup, two shades too light, two left feet as I had not grown fully into my limbs.
And they can see how aware I was of my pointy chin when I was thirteen years of self-conscious, repeating all the better responses to conversations, like my life was some laugh track sitcom,
just like I do right now,
many days, still,
in notebooks, to plants, to the bank machine, to the mirror at the optometrist, to the grocer when I run errands,
because even though now I run errands and have checks to cash,
I still have baby hair to bash,
and I laugh the same laugh,
with my eyes that turn into little moons,
thinking in the same cartoons,
under good eyebrows, though unkempt,
above the toil of braces and 21 years of chapped lips.

I want to feel loved.

I crave the melting of flesh into mine.
Boiling pores and sweating fingertips
tracing my face.
I lace myself into your hair and make myself a nest.
I am safe,
but not for long.

For I will never feel safe again,
not in your arms,
not in the arms of any.
I am *****,
soiled,
used,
empty.

I am not a body of love,
No longer a *** of milk tea
on a cold day.
Watercolour stains wash away with water.

I am viper,
I am splinters,
hangnails,
and paper cuts.

I will never be soft again,
and it’s your fault.
I will never forgive you for that.

spread me open and lay me out on your table like a blueprint (I'm just as hard to read)
nail me on the wall like a laminated world map (put pins on all the places you've been)
oil me up like your old, squeaky boxspring mattress (you remember the one)
give me life like the cpr dummy in middle school health class (mouth to mouth, get it?)
tell everyone how beautiful I look like a dead body in an open casket (we all know what you really mean)
wreck me like the abandoned house behind the railroad tracks (what a shame, it has so much historical value)
wrap me up like a reopened wound (oops, my bad)
bite me like the hangnails you get from chewing your fingers (it's a nervous habit)
drill my pieces together like ikea furniture (you might just have to wing it, I lost the instructions a long ******* time ago)

Her name was Mystery
She loved poetry, so I thought I’d write her some

Hangnails always lived on the sides of her thumbs
The same thumbs she used to type up her future book ideas with

Music flowed through her body like waves in the ocean

She fell in love with characters she’ll never meet
But she had so much hope

Optimistic, she was

She danced with the hillsides of mountains
And taught me about aliens

She swore she was from Elsewhere
I guess Mystery is trapped inside a fake reality
A world she created herself

Mystery loved movies
She told me she wanted to be in some, one day
But I told her she didn’t need to be fictional
And she said
“Maybe I already am”

there is a constant ache behind the eyes - dim,
like the dying embers of a fire. my stomach
is always too full of everything I didn't eat, the
foreignness spread like black mold beneath the
surface of everything.

picking at hangnails, picking at chapped lips, picking
the scabs that scabbed over my spirit.

my tongue is scratched like a scratched cd,
I have only one or two things that I keep
repreprepeating.

there is a build-up in my throat of apologies,
lingering on my breath and the truth I have been
keeping in my belly, the truth I have swallowed so
greedily, the truth is I haven't
much

truth.

I’ve quit smoking 6 times,
quit drinking 4,
the intervals are
sparse and unworthy,
I wear jeans with
dainty holes
from cigarette butts,
my breath wreaks
of a mixture,
and my cologne
surmounts the
insurmountable,
I’ll look skyward on
chilled nights
and try to decipher
between smoke and breath,
I’ll purposefully wear worn socks
to give the sought useless
a purpose,
I’ll run soapy loofas
over scabbed knuckles
for punishment and end up
enjoying the sting,
I’ll tie ties to tight
and my shoes to loose,
I’ll scrutinize grammar,
and misspell because
hypocrisy makes me *****,
I pick at calluses until they bleed
I’ll **** on ****** hangnails
cause I like the coppery taste,
I’ll never litter,
and I fight at bars,
I drink alone now,
but I’ve quit 4 times,
allow me to put into perspective
that quitting anything
has moved from an elective
to becoming eclectic,
and new habits,
for me, don’t replace
old ones but squeeze them in
to a car destined at a dead end,
but what doesn’t **** me now,
makes death so much sweeter
in the finale.

The Witch Finder general hides between the pavement cracks. His breath smells of something  something sinister.

He lives in an old peoples home and he smells of **** sedated by beautiful nurses in stockings.

In flickering moments of lucidity he wonders how he has come to be in this place, this pitiful existence. His mind feels strong during  vague vignettes but he is imprisoned by his failing and aged body.

More drugs administered by the ***** nurse soon weaken him again, his awareness washes away
his mind slowly slides down
                warm
                   nylon thighs.

On his knees,
hangnails scratch against stockings, ladders and runs.

She's crawling these days,
And it's a joyous throwback to
The wordless days, when the
Eye reflects sunshine instead of tonic
And there was someone,
Always someone                                                 up
To take over when it was too much.         up
                                                               up
She's crawling in her own spit-up
And learning how to drown.
There's a certain effortlessness
To a downward spiral
And she's mastered it with the
Dedication of a carnie's mid-night
Reflections in a backdrop
Of cotton-candy and ****** expulsion.

The world has painted itself white
And she's the little blemish
Of hangnails and spilled cognac
When Atlas would rather decorate
With her broken winter smile;
Teeth to match the whites of his eye
And shattered eggshell.

She's crawling these days, amidst
Broken bottles that reflect such starry eyes
The way puddles muddy the sky
And house the most optimistic birds,
Unheeding the poolside signs saying
Shallow end.
The water is dedicated to darkness
And she's dedicated to falling.

My hands look old.
I don't know what happened to their previous beings,
their soft, pale, younger selves.
My hands are cracked from the dry humorless days of anticipation.
I have hangnails, my skin so dry it's splitting from itself.
And they shake.
They shake along with my voice and my thoughts.
Trembling with excitement and worry.
When you're in the room,
especially when you're not, though.

I have stretch marks.
On my inner thighs, and on my sides,
they remind me of roads, of maps, of going places.
Each goosebump is a hillside,
each little crack in my dry skin is a riverbed, waiting for rain.
My body is a terrain of  imperfections,
and I'm just trying to keep still enough
as to not disturb the world that I harvest.

A robust, full bodied cup of coffee
The resounding zeros and dated euphemisms
The criminal and large and I sitting
He has something to say I tell him to spit it out
He says he knows I'm holding out on him and tells me to cough it up

I adhere to his demand and pull out my rucksack and empty it out on the shellacked table

Cream of tartar
Cumin
Cloves
Bay leaves    
Clovers
Ginger
Mustard seeds
Anise
A plethora of extracts and Madagascar vanilla bean

I give in because this guy has a murderous track record nine miles long
While I have a lifelong loosing streak
I dare not try and petition him with defiant excuses and off the hook tones

He needed these things to prepare a meal for his dying father
He suffers from hangnails and trend followers
As his son follows a dark path that is a far cry from a path that will lead to a career

The criminal gathers the vials of herbs and spices with tears in his eyes and goes on his way
I sit and finish my coffee unfazed and understanding

To be continued...

hands
relics and rebels
count time in small cuts and hangnails
know more than their wearer
see clearer the pinprick of life
the pain emanating, stinging
and with grace
cautiously teaching

she's the kind of girl that reminds you
of summer in all the wrong ways -
of the pain in the sunburn,
or saying goodbye to what you love.
she's the kind of girl that you
need alcohol to love,
because only you know just how much
you want to forget her.
she's the kind of girl that makes you
choke back words like "****" and "failure"
for fear that one day
she might stop proving you right.
she's the kind of girl that makes you
punch your knuckles ****** against tile,
tear at hangnails,
or turn off your favorite songs.
she's the kind of girl that you have to
learn to let go of, because she sinks her teeth
so far under your skin
that it's hard to **** the poison out.

please don't
look me in the eye,
I'm trying to pretend I don't care
trying
to hold an empty stare
without breaking
the nonchalant veneer
I've smothered my telltale heart in

my skin is soft
satin snagged by hangnails
hung in loosened sails
to catch the wind, but go
nowhere,
nothing can rip me in two
if I am moldable goo,
yet I grapple with ghouls
who snicker at my boo-boos

boo-hoo little foolish one
no one is remembered
once their hands have
disappeared into foreign lands,
a lacerated tongues spews
sinister commands
and my brain swallows them whole,
slip-sliding into the wormhole
to become the nothing I feel so

i used to think it mattered that you never wanted to talk to me
i also used to think it mattered that everyone else got the chance to know you and i didn't

but you're just a person
you'll live and then you'll die
you'll be buried in the ground and flowers will adorn your grave
but before that
you'll burn your tongue on too-hot coffee and get scrapes and bruises when you fall
you'll get hangnails and scream when you try and pick them off
your feet will get sore from work and you'll buy the wrong size of shirts for your sister's birthday and she'll get sad

it's taken time to realize it
but you're just a person
and i don't think anything matters much anymore

I haven’t been
drinking much lately,
I haven’t wrote
anything in a while,
and I always knew
putting the two
hand in hand was never fine,
a healthy vice is trapped
by an unhealthy outlet,
and the curious kid looking
for a spark
had dried his fork,
I do miss the teeth sinking
into my throat
having the pain
run to my hands,
I miss waking up
with cinderblocks
glued to my scalp,
the nightstand used to eat
up the empty bottles
and the stomach pains are
now keeping me up at night,
I remember whiskey stained
chest hair and biting at hangnails,
****** fingers and the
taste was fuel,
I remember writing
and waking up
and erasing
and waking up,
what is a poet?
I’m going to have
a drink and this was
written sober.

I wanna tell you life ******* *****,
Kicks you in the ***, when your down it doesn't care,
It just kicks harder,
Like a splinter in your finger,
The hangnails peeling off your hands,
And the callouses just get rougher,
Or worse,
A friend shuts up,
A boy leaves,
And life just doesn't give a **** about where you go or what you do,
Everyone around just wants to hurt you!
And I got these bandaids from my battle scars,
I decided to try too hard,
Or not try at all,
I can't seem to win,
So its ok to feel hopeless, or like a loser,
Or the wimpy sinner that you are,
I mean for awhile,
But don't let the dust bite you,
Don't let the storm blow you over,
When you get hit,
You hit back!
When your heart breaks,
You break whatever broke it,
Lick the wounds later,
Cause you gotta go after what some happiness right now

i cannot quite explain the fears inside my head
but they express themselves
in the broken skinned lips i have
and the gnawing on dead skin
they express themselves
in the chewed on fingernails
they express themselves
from the sores from picking at hangnails and scabs
and they express themselves
from popping my joints as much as they will allow
do i look as anxious as i feel
half of this **** i don't even realize i'm doing

Tips when it comes to falling in love with an artist

1. don't

2. seriously, don’t

3. if you do, just think about how much poetry they’ll find in the strings hanging off of your clothing that you hate so much. They will love the small things, like the hangnails on your thumbs that you always have because you’re convinced that you have dermotilomania, even though you don’t. You just have a nervous, addictive habit. He or she or they or them will love the wrinkles under your eyes, and the creases in your forehead when you’re convinced that you need to stop getting so old. They will look at you every day and see the art inside of you, and since they’re an artist, they’ll defiantly feel like ******* you later that night

4. seriously, they might just want to have *** with you so they can write about the ****** they had. They’ll break your heart so bluntly, and create a best seller off of it

5. I’m kind of kidding about that one, but not really, (I garuntee it’s happened before). But, since I am a cliche *******, optimistic genius, I will tell you this... They’ll teach you to appreciate the most hateful things in the world. Example, global warming. Okay, no, maybe we shouldn’t love that. But you should love the fact that you can create a conspiracy theory about how global cooling is actually a thing, not global warming. You’ll learn to love every flaw of every person because the person you love will teach you such things that you knew were possible, you had just never felt.

prepare for this because you too might become an artist. plot twist, you are an artist. go make art.

We are ugly
with bitten-down tips
shaking and smeared
rough sides from the constant
indentation of teeth
moles and scars
some on purpose
other paper cuts
litter our surface
we feel and caress
the paper and the pen
the book and the laptop
hangnails caught on fabric
yet still we come back
we are hands
nimble and quick
always hungry to create
wanting more and more
the need to make beautiful
things overwhelms us

There are only small pains, now.
Paper cuts, hangnails,
sore arms from trash bags too heavy.
It is strange to be so free.
One grows used to the darkness,
the light, blinding.
I blink, my eyes dry,
I feel my pulse in my lips--
it feels strange.
I stare at the ceiling,
your memory resting on my chest,
lining the gap I want to fill,
but my hands lie empty.

Maybe I was too much thinking
and not enough time
always trying to stay in the lines.
I was too much space,
but not enough stars
barely enough room
to keep my heart.
I was too many hangnails,
falling over guard rails
nothing there to stop my fall.
I was too many truths,
not enough dares,
who even cares
about a girl so scared.
Too many some days
not enough nows
hitting the branches
on my way down.
I've seen too many fallen
to be happy with my life,
I've seen not enough days
and too many nights.