Her voice is soft and tender, and
It's too much.
You can't bear it.
She whispers sweet nothings into your ear, impossible promises of unending affection,
And you think you aren't enough like this.
It can't stop at you coming this close, no,
You have to become her.
Like knotted thread, wild and tangled, your hands are in her hair.
You bring strands up to your cheek;
The sensation, foreign to you, tickles your skin.
You wonder how it'd feel if it belonged there.
Then you stop wondering.

Your thumb makes circles on her hand
And reverently, you lift it to your lips:
Her fingers, thin and nimble, intertwined with yours, yours, yours,
Her nail beds, elliptical, shiny, and perfect,
Cuticles pushed back, evenly groomed.
She's perfect, God, she's perfect,
But you feel your mind go as the bedroom grows distant,
Until everything is gone, and
You are alone inside yourself.

You tried taking a nail file to your own hand once, in the quiet of a dark little bathroom;
With the lights off, you couldn't see your shame in the mirror.
It was a rushed job, shaky tools and shallow breathing,
Because if you lingered too long on the implications,
You would die, right there, hovering above the sink.
In the end, it didn't matter, since
You couldn't figure out how to do it right, and someone had said
That you had nails fit for a working man,
Framed with calluses,
Wide, square, and ugly,
So it wouldn't matter how much you polished or clipped or scraped,
And besides, why would you care?

Here again, you think that if you push her, flush against the sheets,
If you tried hard enough, her flesh would meld with your own,
And you could be beautiful, too.
She knows their secrets, she could show you
How to get your nails just right,
But you've ruined it (you'd ruin her,) you're crying now.
"What's wrong, darling," she murmurs.
Her voice is soft and tender, and
It's too much.