My memory is weak and I can’t remember where I was, but I remember hands. A man who must have been a great deal older than anyone else in the room shook mine. His skin was olive and draped over his bones, wrinkled deep. The only way you can get those hands is by touching, and flexing, and stretching. How many hands did it take to make his skin fold? How many letters written, bags carried, doors closed, cars driven before he earned those lines?
Imagine the water inside his heart the first time he held his palm against the cheek of a woman he loved. Imagine his heart when he used them to make mistakes.
I look at my own hands– so tiny. One scarred only by the other, pleated only at the knuckles. They still have so much to do. So much touching, and flexing, and stretching. But I still don’t know if I will die by them, still smooth.
Girltown 