Tattered Cuticles

I've spent the better part of my life to this point, waiting. I've been waiting to be 'discovered' by someone. Sought out. Sought after. For anything. For any piece of who I am.


I wait for buses, gaps in conversation, the right moment to ask her to dance. The right moment to kiss her. The right moment to write freely and without fear of judgement; or without care of judgement anyway.


Oh, I know. I'm being melodramatic. That's my poetic license. That's my prerogative. There are all sorts of roadblocks and reasons why I've waited this long to just begin again. To let go of the past. Emotion comes to mind. Emotion, while I treasure it for it's stick and carrot effect on writing, runs interference on clarity of thought.


I sabotage myself before I really get going.


I'm done with waiting. Those words that I've often uttered in the back of my mind, giving rise to a chorus of voices shouting the same thing over and over. I'm done with waiting. Easy for me to say. For my mind to say.


I still pick at my fingers though.


My point is, it's easy for me to say I am going to stop picking at my fingers, picking at the memories of corruption set upon them in my youth, but it's another to actually stop. A learned behaviour. A habit. An addiction.


It's the same thing with memory and emotion. Diving into those murky waters that don't really exist but echo into the present from time to time. A choice is made, and I'm swept away by the currents.


I still pick at my fingers, and I still remember conversations exchanged beneath a dark sky late into the night and early mornings.


And while a choice is made, and while I don't want to traverse those swirling memories so much these days, I still can't forget the way it felt to fall asleep with her in my arms.


And I still can't forget the dawn in her smile.