God I’m Just a Girl

You bite your nails, right?
      
  Actually

I thought I kicked that bad habit—
thought my nail beds looked less
like my dad’s these days.

Hands clasped together, fingers
laced in prayer, bitten
         thumbs facing out
facing me, 
     		asking
Whose hands are these?

They’re mine. I remember 
holding God with them
like a prayer, just like this,
holding him tight so he
      	wouldn’t get away—

but he did because
these hands didn’t lock, couldn’t hold in air: 

he drained from my fingers the way
sea water poured
out of my cupped hands
on that summer beach,
saltwater stinging

my eyes, my cupped hands letting go of God.
Clenched fists trying to keep–
(I could never keep a thing, 
God I’m just a girl.)

Yes, I’m sorry
I guess I still bite my nails.
I would scratch your back if I could
but I never outgrew that bad habit.

The truth is, I remember everything
despite insisting that I’m someone else:
different memories now, different hands
hands 

despite insisting that my stump-nailed fingers are
just the withered remnants of some girl–

–the one I used to be.

Artwork Courtesy of our featured Artist Hassan Zahreddine