finger predator

I was watching this fancy play with my mom when my fingers started bleeding. When I’m bored, I tend to slice the sides of my fingers, where the side of the nail meets the skin. Also when I’m at church and during most exams. I’ve used lots of different tools, and here, it was the playbill. It’s sort of like starting a fire, especially since blood and flames have similar qualities (i.e. red, warm, fluid, can get out of hand). Pretty early on in Act Two, the edge of the booklet was slicing across my left thumb with an urgent speed. My mother reached across my sister and grabbed my wrist. "I spent nine months making those fingers. You may not care, but body is mine.", she said. On my 18th birthday, that most holy of days when one gains bodily autonomy, I took a scissor from my drawer, and sliced the same thumb. It was incredibly painful, and I decided maybe that was too bold a statement. Later that night my mother observed the bandaid on my thumb and the bloody shreds sprouting from the nine other digits. "Everyone will think you're a tortured carpet-maker child from Asia with those" she remarked. Though I look nothing like a child (certainly not one from Asia), I have woken up every morning since believing her, and covering the grisly tips with bandaids. And every day people ask me what's wrong with my fingers.