Hangnails

I don't think

about you every day

but always

when roasting potatoes and basil

on the stove.

Pick a splinter,

and I remember

how you used to

uproot

my hangnails with tweezers

then swear it was better

than letting

them be.

I could wail and bleed,

but even when the swelling

settled in,

you wouldn't admit

to cruel ignorance.

It's not as if

you were incapable of kindness,

but your apathy

carelessly corroded

into everyone else's

responsibility when they got burned.

I promised

I wouldn't miss us,

and I don't, but you surface

in my dreams

like a wandering goat

with nothing helpful to say

and a mouthful

of fragile things,

eating just to eat.

In the end, you gifted only

the awkward warning,

"Better not write stories

about me,"

and haphazardly left out

the, "or else."

Undear, this poem isn't about you,

rather the fruiting

of a vine

once blamed for her own wilted

petals in the absence

of drink.