Share the Bottle with Your Brother by Ashley Lohmann

My black nail polish is chipping

Away at my anxiety—I feel like a badass

It’s that tiny bottle I’m worshipping

Until it’s on my fingertips you’re slipping

Judgement, so I dig until my skin and nails won’t contrast and

My black nail polish is chipping

I’ll tell you why the stench of adolescence is overpowering:

They’re ditching shooters and humanity in the grass

It’s that tiny bottle they’re worshipping.

There are people in my neighborhood dying

And they choose my fingertips to harass?

My black nail polish is chipping.

Pills sitting nicely on the counter, and I hear them tempting

The face staring back at me in the glass

Though it’s not that tiny bottle I’m worshipping

And I feel like a man when I’m painting,

Not going to hide it in class or rub it off for mass,

My black nail polish is chipping

So, it’s that tiny bottle I’m worshipping.