Instead of the woman behind me in the post office line
saying—Such a pretty girl should have pretty nails—
she will comment on the lilac shine as I lower
my left hand away from my face. I’ll tell her that now
I go to the nail salon every two weeks with my mother
to catch up on the silence around the things we never
speak of. To talk about my new mom-approved self.
How I can peel price tags off the face of frames. Lift
a can’s tab without using a spoon. Tap all the tables
in quarter notes. Remove the sun glued car registration
sticker from the windshield. Unhook keys from rings.
Align screen protectors on cellphones. Imagine.
I don’t hide my hands in my pockets or underneath
notebooks. I don’t have conversations with people
who tell me—It’s a disgusting habit—like I don’t
already know. Like I don’t already know of my tic,
this flaw I started at four, a perfectionist’s curse,
a habit I’ve tried to break just to have it mend itself
over anxiety. That even with unbitten nails I still find
them imperfect. Even with unbitten nails the woman
behind me at the post office will still have something
else to add to the end of: Such a pretty girl should have . . .
Amanda Galvan Huynh has received scholarships and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sundress Academy for the Arts, NY Summer Writers Institute, and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Her poems can be read in RHINO Poetry, The Southampton Review, and Tahoma Literary Review.
