Nail-Biting Bed-Wetter

I’ve started to bite my nails like I did when I was little.  I can’t remember when I stopped, but I did a long time ago.  I began to let them grow.  Then, I began to paint them.  And now, full circle at age 18, I bite again.  I chew and I eat and I maim the ends of my fingers.  I drag my teeth across the undersides and swallow all the dirt.  And I don’t know how else to explain it save the fact that I am growing young gain.  I’ve wished so long and hard to be five again, to forget the feel of dead nose under my fingers and the stones I carried in my dress pocket to mark his grave.  I’ve wished so long that, finally, it’s happening.  And I’m being laughed at: 

“We’ll show you.  You want five?  Oh, we’ll give you five.  It comes complete with a broken elbow, push-pops, Happy Meals, pissy sheets, Swamp Thing, and bloody fingertips.  Are you happy now?” 

 

I am.

I am!