A blue-green Y runs up my left hand, branching into capillaries that disappear into the thicker skin of my fingers. My thumbnail is cut down to the quick, victim of an avocado-slicing incident, protector of flesh. Pale moons rise from pink nail beds, ending in white curves, paper-thin and peeling, like old wallpaper. My life line, my love line; creases like a roadmap of a European city. The base of my ring finger is callused and rough; I pick at it absently, fidgeting, thoughtful. Or unthinking.
Unthinking. Not thinking. An impossibility.
Do you understand why I jig and amble? Why I lisp? I play the fool, the idiot, the harlot, the virgin. The whore.
I flex my forefinger and a rope of blood pulses beneath the skin like a subcutaneous creature from a horror film. My life in my hand.
I turn my hand over and offer it to you, palm up, the blue-green veins in my wrist the tributaries of my heart.
