Pickings

"Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which I was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring..."

-- Walt Whitman, "Shut not your doors"

--

I pick my fingernails. It's a bad habit. I do it anyway. It's better than smoking. (I do that sometimes anyway, too.)

I don't just settle for prying at my nails with the nails of my other hand. I bite. I gnash and gnaw. I scrape at pale cuticles until it hurts. Then I go at the knobby bumps on the inside pads of my thumbs, and the callous I've roughed into being on my right ring finger. The activity makes my hands sweat. When the yellow-green end of a nail surpasses the fingertip, I set my teeth to it, peeling it away like opening a bag of Sun Chips. Then I'm left with a fingernail that is sharp and flimsy, and I pluck away the excess until I have a smooth, honed tip. I don't know why I don't just clip them. Sometimes, I do.

I don't like the feeling of making a fist. That's not pacifism, it's just comfort. My nails never feel right, stabbing at my palms.