Poetry for the Soul

Manicure

I keep my nails,

neat, clean and tidy.

Pretty, but professional.

Respectable.

Unobjectionable.

Like I used to try to keep my life.

I buff and trim and polish,

but my nails never stay perfect.

Neither does my life.

Even now and then one snaps, cracks or breaks.

The polish chips off,

nail exposed.

Marking me as flawed.

I used to bite my nails,

nerves and anxiety,

manifesting.

Don't look,

I need more time,

I'm trying.

Those who don't understand scowl,

with their perfectly manicured hands.

Look at you,

messy,

gross,

with your hands in your mouth.

Nails,

a strange measuring stick of life.

Tiny and soft when young,

then painted hot pink, black, and orange.

Wild, short, long, pointed, bedazzled,

sometimes fake.

Then fragile and brittle as time runs out.

Nails.

They mark our highs and lows,

weaving their way into the stories of our lives,

"She raked her nails down his back and moaned."

"She wanted to claw her eyes out."

"Her nails dug into her palms as she bit back her anger."

In the movies, the beautiful bottle blonde girl next door,

files her nails while lounging on a lawn chair,

and popping pink bubble gum and gossiping.

Not me.

I am bent over the sink on a Sunday night,

sawing at my nails with an old, brown drugstore nail file.

Filing, clipping and buffing my nails into submission.

I smile as I hear the sing-song voice,

of the bottle blond chirping away on the living room TV.

And I laugh,

because the girl who once wore hot pink, orange, and black nail polish,

also thought,

that perfection was what she wanted.