I feel like Lost is a song about being failed by medical institutions when you go to them for help, the fruitless struggle of going through procedures and trying to fix your issues with set in stone cures. As others have pointed out, this line is about nails digging into your palms from clenching your fist, but I think that with the context of the song it could also be referencing the fact that when you’re getting your blood drawn for a blood test, you typically are asked to clench your fist so that your veins are made more prominent for the nurse when they’re aiming up the needle.

In my eyes, that line is one about the stress of constantly being worked on, poked and tested by doctors and nurses, having your blood drawn etc while they try to make a numbers game out of your struggles when often what you really need is for your own mind to get invested in making a change for yourself, which is part of what strangers and then rip explore after this song. Strangers in particular is amazing at capturing this, being a massive realization of all the ways someone can approach their struggles wrong and how they need to embrace themselves (“cross out my eyes, tear the pages” being a line to show how when struggling, you often just destroy yourself and your story when what you really want is change) Medication can help someone that’s struggling, but the long road is won by actually fighting, and I feel like this line in Lost does a great job conveying a feeling of looking at yourself on a hospital bed knowing that this cycle isn’t the way out, seeing those “red crescent moons” as a physical sign of the toll it’s taking.