Dear Hangnail,

You are a little thorn, a flea's springboard that pokes from the base of my fingernail. You are a grain of rice, a barb to snag on the inside of your glove. You are a waggling minifinger, a jutting fang, the prick of a shrew. You are a weed sprouting from a cleft in the earth; a tiny twig of unpruned flesh, paler than the surrounding skinscape. You are a dangling larva, the quivering lip of some deep-sea fish. You are a footnote, a splinter group, a vice-president: I would tear you off with my teeth, behead you, impeach you, but I am overcome with tenderness. I want to nurture you, watch you grow into a mighty digit, maybe even a clone of myself. Someone who will keep me company when I am old and have chased everyone away with my navel-gazing, with my senile obsession with minutiae, with my incessant staring at my cuticles. I want to live to see the day when you have a little hangnail of your very own, maybe even on your pinky. And perhaps like me, you will pause, unsure if you can bring yourself to squeeze that nail clipper.