What the Hands Confess

I didn't notice when I started.

Just one finger at first.

Then another. Then all of them.

My hands working without permission,

peeling back the skin beneath the nail.

Two of them are bleeding now.

The cuticles raw. Angry.

Like my hands are confessing things

my mouth won't say.

Someone tried to hold my hand today.

I pulled away like it burned.

Like I was dangerous.

Like these bleeding edges

could transfer whatever's inside me

into someone else.

That's when I really saw them.

That's when I understood

that my body had been speaking

the whole time

and I just hadn't been listening.

My hands know something

my mouth is too afraid to say.

They've been saying it all week—

in raw skin, in blood,

in the particular shame

of looking down and realizing

you've been hurting yourself

without even noticing.