Nervous Habit. Nervous Habit.

I have a nervous habit.
Nervous habit.

When I don't think, I feel it.
When I think, I feel it.

I feel it like ants crawling between strands of my hair.
My scalp is moving.

Their tiny little legs creep and tickle.
Their imaginary legs bother me.
Little legs.
Tiny legs.

I have to do it. I have to do it.
I had an itch.

I cut my fingernails, but it didn't help.
I sleep with a bandana on my head, but it doesn't help.

I feel it and it frustrates me until I bleed.
I'm shocked. It hurts. Why did I do it? Why do I bleed?
It hurts and all I want to do is vomit.


I feel it, and it is.


Imperfect.





I don't need perfection and I don't want perfection,
but my fingers seem to think otherwise.

They seek out these imperfections and rip them away.
Tear them away!
Scratch and rip and tear.
Scratch and rip and tear.

I forget what I am doing, when I am doing, why I am doing.

Skrach

and

wrip

and

tare.



Until it is raw and new and perfect,
It will not stop.

Until I can't feel it any longer,
It will not stop.

The scabs are growing bigger.
The blood is drying faster.

I am imperfect.
I am becoming imperfect.

And they are just more imperfections!

And I can't stop.




I need to keep my fingers busy.

This is why I write.
Slow, looping letters.

I can't stop to check spelling.
I won't stop to read my work.

Until I am finished,

This is my nervous habit: I write.

Am I alone?
I think I am not.

Where did this come from?
All those tests at school.
Tests upon tests.
Pencil in my right hand, my head in my left.

Nervous habit, nervous habit.

But why?


Why?


Nervous habit, nervous habit,

You cannot define me.
I define you.


"This is my nervous habit," I write.

I feel it,
And I can't stop.