Carried: Nail Problems (Fourth Toe)

The worry sits on adequacy in close relations: whether there is enough to give, whether it lands, whether the method used is the right one. Two versions run — an estimate of one's abilities set too low, and an attachment to a personal way of doing things that has stopped being examined — and both produce the same anxious checking. The toes take the small forward steps and the nails cover their ends, which is where a question about direction lodges. What the shape asks for is one honest answer from the person the effort is aimed at.

Am I doing this right? I've asked it so many times the asking has become the thing that's wrong.

Cain at the altar, watching his offering pass unregarded and never told what was wrong with it. The form implies a task: to ask what would count, rather than deciding alone that nothing does.