Eclipse

Eclipse

I know these are not pretty hands, as I peel my skin off of my finger tips with my nails. Snowflakes, I think, as the coiled curves gently fall, adding to the existing debris on the floor, mirroring the outside where a dusting of white snow lies unmoving in the still night. These bits of me fallen off, soft skin bits becoming hard and dried in the winter air. Exuviated.

If I could peel you, just like this, from my mind, I would. I’d leave dehydrated bits of you on my floor. Would that leave you thinner, less bright? The parts of you I have with me, do you even know that they are missing? Or have I given a body to just your shadow? Are you whole and complete somewhere else, while I flay skin to forget you?

I hear a car drive down the street, a momentary beam of light makes its trajectory across the ceiling of my single room and then disappears, leaving nothing behind. Even though the heat is on, the tip of my nose is cold. The radiator clanks suddenly and then settles back down. This silence is a hollow sound, punctuated by the steady sound of my nails on skin. Punctuated, repeatedly, until punctured. I’ve drawn blood. Again. My sticky fingers tell me that. Yet, I feel no pain. These tortured hands, marked with a thousand stories, are hands that I hide from most people. Funny thing, to hide your hands. Its almost like hiding your face. Maybe I do that... hide my face, showing only some chosen parts. Do I leave gaping holes in my narrative that others have to fill in? Is that what I did to you, leave you to fill in parts of me, complete my story; feeling let down, angry, cheated when you could not. 

I know there is a tub of vaseline on the table somewhere. I should get up out of my chair. I should reach for the vaseline and coat my finger thickly with it; soothe the skin, make it better, make it so that it can be put out in public again...in public. 

The leafless trees tremble ever so slightly in front of the filament of a street light. I cannot move.