There’s grit in the lines of my hands and dirt that doesn’t wash out so easily. And I’m afraid to touch folks sometimes. Afraid I’ll soil them with the blackness that so thoroughly tells a story in the dry cracks of these fingers. It doesn’t stop me, but I’m afraid. So I reach out with closed hands. With fingers curled to me because this is what should remain with me, not what should stain sheets.
They offered gloves. I said no. I have to feel, to touch, to know. I can’t grasp with a barrier between. Something shunting the sensation of you feeling me. Or if you say it the other way around, it’s truer still. And scars like a dried up riverbed, that’s what the next has to contend with. How to reach the one so very reachable, so attainable? How to reach me is the question I kiss away with deep melancholy and a lingering smile. A gentle nudge that stays buried in pale swoops of light that play across bedroom floors.
And I scrub these hands. I pull the grit from each line of every fingerprint. One by aching one. It’s all I can offer. Clean hands once buried in so much dirt.
(April 17, 2008)
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