Deckled Edges

According to the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, my fingers are deckled edges. Biting my nails has an artistic flair, and mostly, always, been about fixing things.

deckle edge

What things? Which things? Everything.

I chew my nails when I’m actively paying attention, and when I’m not. Or, I’m always paying attention, but won’t admit my unique obsession ... obsession for uniqueness. Skin pushed, folded, cut back. An ever evolving edge to the observer. Me.

natural or sometimes artificial rough edge

It’s not worth the effort to deny the obsession, obsessive? Yes. Compulsion. Compulsiveness. People are watching and noticing me not noticing me.

My aunt asks to see my nails. She bites hers too. I don’t show her, but I tell her, “I think they look good. Except, well, that one. I have one, one, sometimes two, that catch the brunt of my focus.”

A constant nag or release. These nails never grow past the round rise of my finger. I rub my finger across their surface but never around their edge.

natural edge of a page

Those nails are the ones that survive long enough so that my teeth slip under and move back and forth until they catch.

Tugging, tearing, just a little …

sometimes artificial rough edge

Until there’s a ridge that needs to be smoothed. To be fixed.

What needs to be fixed?

What needs to be fixed,

I caused it.

I slowly pull, air and collagen. Release.

Wrongness.

To just-rightness.

deckle edge

My teeth return, round the nail down until its edge is flush with the skin.

edge of a page

I inhale again, to rest, to inspect,

Like a dog I judge time passing by scent.

Again.

Garlic marks weeks. Sweat merely days.

And again.

left uncut

Moist, always. That’s the problem. The always moist. It’s the reason.

Wet pages don't cut.

They tear.

I wait.

And, I don't.

My sister-in-law noticed me noticing and made me notice her, noticing.

The comfort in rough edges.

see also cut edges, uncut, and unopened

Six months pass. I’m still waiting. "It will be fine."

Everyone probably thinks, I slammed it in a door. I want them to think better of me --

authentic, alluring, historically significant --

not that I do worse, to myself.

It happened because of too much fixing. The constant

dampness made the center too soft, and then

the center peeled

back.

natural rough edge

I live days when the nail is better than it was.

One day I stopped trying to cover it at the gym with the pad of another finger across its surface.

One day whiteness returns, rising up in a semicircle from the monotone pink.

One day the nail is thicker. One day the nail is longer.

No one asks, but that doesn’t mean no one notices.

or sometimes artificial rough edge

I worry, and hope, equally that the nail will grow out, again.

“It will be okay.” I tell my aunt, my sister-in-law, everyone who isn’t asking.

“It’s been awhile, but I’ve done this before. I’ve seen it fix itself," I tell myself.

There’s one cuticle edge, I can’t tell if it is the nail, or the skin taking over in the space I opened. I cut it back. Each time I say I won’t, that I want to see what happens. Next time, I say I won't. A few days brings next time, and

see also cut edges, uncut, and unopened

I don’t.

I rub the nail's texture with my thumb and finally get space underneath. pull. I dig out the tiny scissors. Slowly, I cut a thin line. I inspect the edge. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be.

Deckle edge: natural or sometimes artificial rough edge of a page, left uncut.