Some talk during movies.
Others crack their knuckles,
drink to excess, buy things
they don’t need, make
mountains out of molehills.

I pick my nails. Especially
at night, when my thoughts
skip and scratch like a broken
record and the branches
at my window menace me:
How else to turn off the noise?

At breakfast, my wife asks
about the blood on my hands.
I regale her with tales of ghosts
I bludgeoned to death and how,
while she slept, I domesticated
a lion—just a few scratches!

Pretending not to notice my cuticles,
she says, I’m so proud of you, dear.