I've had clammy hands as long as I can remember.
Cold sweat would build up and flow out of my pores at the worst times.
Dad told me it was bad circulation.
My hands are always tacky and slick with a cold, uncomfortable sweat.
Sometimes I can’t move my hands very well.
My fingers occasionally go numb.

I've had torn up, bloody fingers since I was young.
I never stopped biting my nails. 
My teeth would tear skin from my scarred fingers like it was made of tissue paper, so delicate and easily broken.
I bite and pull until there is nothing left, only raw flesh that was never meant to see the light of day.
I glance at my fingers and see the way my mind feels, bloody, scarred, hopelessly attacked.
I never did mind the pain as much as the appearance.

My Dad told me from the time I could hold a conversation that your hands represent you, that they were your only first impression.
He said that hands give someone insight into the person you are and the person you want to be.
They showed how much you took care of yourself and cared for your appearance.
I looked down at my hands and saw things I didn’t want to confront.

Handshakes were important, too, he said. They show your confidence.
Apparently, sweaty palms weren't going to make people respect me.
"Don't go to a job interview with dirty hands or unclean fingernails. They'll think you're unprofessional. Give a firm handshake, not too flimsy. You need to seem self-assured… But not too hard, either. You don’t want to seem to eager or aggressive."
Dad’s words spun through my head like Saturday morning cartoon reruns
And planted roots in my mind deeper than the trees Dad planted in our yard
I would give him the middle finger; reveal the anger I’ve built up toward him over years of constant criticism
But I don’t think I could handle the disappointed look he would give when he saw the freshly torn skin.

So I hide my hands, right? Right, that’s what I did. I hid the sweaty palms and gnawed nail beds beneath long sleeve t-shirts and balled up fists. I didn’t show anybody.

But, people noticed. They asked why my hands were like that. Why I constantly looked like I had caught my fingers in the revolving blades of a blender before it had fully ended its rotations.
I clenched my fists and changed the subject, embarrassed of myself 
Maybe Dad was right. My hands did represent me, my flaws.

Later I was ashamed to be embarrassed of such a meaningless and simple thing. 
If they matter so much, what do my hands show people about me?
My hands show the nervous sweat that builds up under my arms when I'm uncomfortable, when I’m self-conscious, the sweat that I usually hide with baggy clothes. 
My hands show my bad circulation that has seemed to worsen over the years. They turn pale white, like unmarked printer paper, and blotchy red, and my veins become visible if I get too cold, shining through like a lantern under a thin, useless blanket, the kind I use to hide from the monsters that lurk in the depths of my room at night. Dad says I just have thin skin.
My hands show the way I pick at myself. The damage I have created in my nail beds is nothing compared the holes I've dug in my mind. My fingers show a preview of the way I dissect myself, but only skin deep.
Every thought, every idea, every hope and dream… I’ve torn them all to bits. Never allowing my mind to be silly and free. I must always be realistic, never over-confident, only sometimes hopeful. I lie awake at night, destroying all positive thoughts one-by-one. I don’t deserve to be that happy.
My fingers look a lot like I would imagine my head would. I never allow new skin to grow. I always tear it off before it can happen. Sometimes I tear it too short… that’s when I bleed.

If people can't handle my torn up fingers on the outside, I wonder what they would say if they saw what's inside my head.

No one would know except for him and me. No one would know that our thumbs curve in at the base like the lines of a Barbie’s waist, unattainable to every young girl. And no one would be interested in the fact that that the nail is flat and round with a big curve at the edge. No one would notice that the third crease down on our knuckles only goes halfway across the surface of our thumbs, starting on the side closest to our hands and ending right near the middle, while the other lines go all the way across. No one would see that our cuticle makes a half moon shape in perfect proportion with each other's, never changing in size. No one would care that my right thumb is a little fatter than my left, but so is his. No one would think anything of the fact that I care so much about such a small detail. But I am proud to have those thumbs.

My thumbs are identical to his with a few objections. Mine are smaller, not even half the size of his. His thumbs are fully double jointed while mine can just barely pop in and out, a nervous habit I developed around the age of 11. Mine are also swollen and red, peeling at the sides of the nail, while my Dad's are scarred only with age.

Dad tells me to fix my hands or hide them.
“Stop biting and picking and just let them heal. Work out more so you won't have such clammy hands.”
He tells me to change my hands, to change what people see of me.

But Dad was also the one that gave me Band-Aid’s when I ripped off too much skin around my pointer finger, or rubbed my hands between his until they were warm and I could move them better. Dad removed the in-grown nails that I got every few months from biting my nails too short. He doesn’t scold me about it too much anymore. Dad showed me our thumbs. I don't remember when. He doesn't bring it up much anymore. He seemed proud of it when I was younger, proud that I had a part of him so obviously represented in me.

A few months ago, Dad told me he still bites his nails sometimes

I don't want to hide my hands.