Fingertips
I’ve heard so many poems, songs, stories about body parts
Almost every single bit of a human’s makeup has been the focal point of works
Ribs, spines, eyes, mouth
Hearts, hands, feet, genes, genitals, and things of the like
Songs about the entirety of the body
But never have I ever heard poems about your fingertips
The bits of my hands that tap away at tabletops in class when I’m too bored to control them
Hitting the letters, space bar, and shift key on my keyboard to channel the words in my head onto the screens I spend hours staring at in hopes to find answers
Be it to share a thought or a joke to my friends, or to spit out stories of fiction and poems of emotion
The fingertips that have brushed against my cheeks to wipe away spilled vulnerability
But have never wiped away the tears of another because they’re busy running up and down that person’s back
Because that’s the only way I know how to comfort, since I’ve never been good with words unless I have that extra second of thought that lingers between idea and literature
During my times of thoughtlessness they tap against my lips
Trying to transfer the phrases that are tied around my fingers into my mouth so they can finally detach from me because I don’t want them
The words get stuck between my head and my pencil, making me stare at blank pages and wish pinpricks from needles could make the poems I want to write flow out with my blood cells
But my fingertips have been broken so many times when I sewed together pieces of fabric
And I’ve learned that the only thing that does for me is hurt and leave stains on felt
So most days, I keep them safely in my coat pockets
And some days, I want to point them at people
The one in the middle as a warning
Telling those that piss me off that I’m not going to take it from here on out
Proclaiming through something other than words so I don’t have to deal with the fear of stuttering between my off-handed “Shut the hell up”s
But when my warnings aren’t heeded
I can point my index fingertip towards the chests of those who have wronged me for so long
Towards the hearts of those who have broken mine and left nothing but a pulsing mess of muscles and severed arteries
Those that have left me struggling
Made me feel like I was the problem this whole time when I had done nothing but press my fingertips against my ears to block out the noise of screaming and slamming doors
Made me believe that I needed to do something to fix the hatred of the ones that do not even want their anger to be fixed
Made me feel obligated to help them when they started drowning in their anger at each other but only pulled me down with them
Made me fall down in a pit, and started tossing their garbage and torn promises into the hole, expecting that I would be able to clean it out
Made me carve the words into my own headstone with my fingernails, but didn’t even stop to read them when I tried to show them the product of that hard work
Made me listen to their repeated excuses of “none of your business”, “just because of stress”, “don’t take what she says personally”
Made me feel weak, and stupid, and worthless, and forgotten
Uncared for, embarrassed, ashamed, wrong, disgusting, unwanted, unneeded, ignored
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang
But my fingertips can’t pass as gun barrels
So I drum them against tables, tap them against my lips and keyboard, shove them in my pockets
I drag them against my arms and legs because my short nails can reach
Not enough to bleed, but enough to make it hurt
Just enough to remind myself that I can still feel, and that I have control over what I do and do not suffer
To distract myself from those that make me want to point my finger at them
Bang