"beneath fingernails"

i'm still learning to let things go.

more accurately, im still learning to release the feelings left in place of things that have been gone for ages now.

these things - sometimes places, sometimes people, sometimes words they said or things they did - i want to pry them from me, more than anything.

but i latched upon their arms and sunk my whittled down nails into their skin and planted my feet firmly into a place of the past, not so easily evacuated from.

i dug the tips of my fingers into carpets and bedsheets, grass-covered ground and car seats - the places that felt like peace and the places that felt like hell, these places i could not force myself to abandon.

their metaphorical flesh collected beneath fingernails, i leave their memories clawed, but not behind.

never behind.

there's dust and dirt and hairs beneath my fingernails, of every place my body left, but my mind could not.

believe me, i tried and i try and i swear one day i will wash my hands spotless of all this grime.