Workshop with Claudia Castro Luna
Anxious Fingers
My hands tell me
That they should be much more rough
Hard work doesn’t come
From soft fingertips
strength
anxiety
anger
fear
memories
love
warmth
The skin on my knuckles
Are bent out of shape
From gnawing them
With anxious teeth
I broke that habit
And placed my anxiety onto a different part of me
My hair
My hair
Split ends
And small knots
From the twisting and turning
The anxious yearning
And twisting and turning
To be anxious no more
My feets constant tapping
Whether I do it consciously
Or without realizing
It taps on
Permission granted or not
Anxiously
Tap tap tapping
My fingernails
Pick at my skin
Looking for imperfections
To rip off
It’s not intentional
But I rip
Rip rip
My back
My face
All picked
Back to my knuckles
Bent out of shape
Gnawing away in aim of biting into constant anxiety
So I could grab it within my teeth
And chew it
Chew chew chew
It into bits
Before I spit it
The now seed
Of anxiety
Into a pit
Where then an ugly tree
A thorny tree
Will grow
This tree won’t grow very big
It will shrivel itself
Not allowing itself to flourish
Much like my anxiety
The thorns will form
A crown
I will pluck this crown
Of thorns
Grabbing onto the spikes
With no regard
My fingers will bleed
But I will place this now
Bloody crown
At my feet
And tell the anxious ghost queen
That fills this thorn crown
She may finally rest
Not anxiously
But in peace
