bevan tse stuart

Hands

I looked at my hands today. 
they are the hands of a man who should not have worked a day in his life. 
long slender fingers that should have been unblemished. 
Soft Palms that could show love at the lightest touch. 
thin wrists that should not have carried the weight they did. 
nails so pristine they almost looked manicured.
But these are not my hands anymore

Here are my hands, callouses grown thick in the nooks of every finger,

nails torn off and bitten to a sharp edge,

White specks spreading in every inch of every nail,

The backs of my hands tattooed with scars. 
cuts wrap around my fingers like a spiders web,

bruises grow along young but battered bones. 
cuticles torn. Blood pours from places unseen beneath my skin. 

I have not been kind to my hands

i had the hands of a musician

and I wanted them

My touch could have been so warm. 
so soft. 
But now my hands lie here. 
smashed upon boulders of pain,

damaged beyond repair

fractures splitting down my bones from the last outburst of pain. 
Of anger. 
Cold like my mind, warmth siphoned off by my unseen terrors in my brain

A mere extension of this lifeless husk I feel myself becoming. 

I wish I could cut these hands off. 
give them to someone more deserving

someone who does not seek to destroy their own beauty

because beauty is not the only thing they can control. 
Someone who does not fear showing love through their fingertips. 
someone who could appreciate the care god have to make such perfect hands


I wish these hands be free of my body