Hangnail

I’m tearing down posters
full of words I no longer believe,
and the pictures while faded
will still stay with me long after they’re gone.
Rain drenched streets look like
concrete mirrors textured
where water fills gaps in the gravel.
It unravels the same way
almost every single time.
We get on the wrong page
and can’t tell if it’s her world or mine.
The laughing group of people
walking way back behind me
don’t surprise me with how long
it takes them to try,
but I won’t give them anything.
Barber shop waiting room anxiety
takes over the minds of the few
in the small shop I’m passing.
They are watching the work
done in front of them worried
they’ll walk out of there
looking too close to someone
they’re not.
We give it all that we got and still show it
in the circles we see through,
we pull the hangnails out
before they hold tightly
enough that they bleed through
all the bandages around them.
It’s been a thousand days
since I’ve last understood
the terrain here, but there is no fear
I can’t somehow just lose track of
like a constellation somewhere
caught in time.