Nerves, loose or spindled

I get nervous sometimes

All it takes is an unwanted thought to screw its way into my brain and leave a threaded hole

Rumination,

A widening pit

Between gaping neurons

If you look close, you’ll see little snarls of dendrite

Dangling into the void

See how my nerve-ends cosplay as cobwebs?

This is where thoughts cannot move the way they should,

They can only sink and spiral

As though they are caught in a whirlpool

Or in a toilet bowl

I’ll lie awake

In the dark

Wondering or wishing

And in all: worrying

About things that amount to nothing but shit

And I’ll chew my nails

I’ll crush them to spit soaked fibers between my teeth

I’ll gnaw

I’ll tear the keratin at the corner

Then I’ll use my fingers and peel the nails the rest of the way

Sometimes

If I’m too lost

In the spiral

I’ll peel too deep

Sometimes I’ll peel that nail right down to the quick

That hurts real bad

Strange to feel so much, when the wound only bleeds a little

Squeezing helps

To kinda shout out the pain

So I’ll put that bleeding finger in my mouth and squeeze it with my molars

But

Then

After I let go

It will sting all the worse

And

My worrying mind will ask:

How many germs did I just apply to this raw, open part of me?

And I’ll think: finger nails are already filthy

So are mouths

I’m practically begging for an infection

I’ll shove that worry behind me

But it won’t stay in the background

It will worm its way back to the front of my mind

I will try to rebuke it

But the worry will remain

Nagging me at every quiet moment

I’ll run my fingers under the hottest water

I’ll hold them under the heat until they are trembling pink

So to scorch all microscopic invaders

Then I’ll dunk them in bright, stinging hand sanitizer

The alcohol will soak the torn skin

Nerve endings will shout their disapproval

But I will think: if this hurts me, how much more will it hurt the germs!

But then when I lay back down I’ll have nothing but my thoughts and my aches and there I’ll see that the original worries never left but were stalking me all along

I’ll fixate

On my hangnails to evade those deeper fears

I’ll start digging them sideways, away from the nail bed

So they can be laid hold of

Then I’ll pluck them

The pain will make me wince

But the worry trailing after me will demand attention

And to ignore this my hangnails will demand complete eradication

As a powerless little man, in a world gone wacky

What else can I do, to feel some local control— other than chew my fingers and tear my hangnails out by the roots?

Once the last rebellious fragment is plucked

I’ll hear the germs again,

Whispering after me

I’ll understand they never left

I’ll feel their sticky breath on my raw skin

And I’ll scrub my fingers once more,

Blood under scalding water

All to keep my gaze forward

All to look away from the anxiety looming

A threat behind my shoulder blades,

All to ignore the feel of Worry itself, like a living thing

A fat, little tick

Crawling up the back of my neck

Looking for a vein to chew