I looked at your hands
And thought, I don’t want my hands to end like that,
I took hers in mine and felt so comforted,
So warm within the cold and hurt,
We found each other there,
Held each other there, I spoke and she was silent,
She rose out of her own ashes to hold me
And she had a strength that I haven’t met since,
A sensitivity and empathy that I long for,
I found in her old beautiful hands.
What happens to those hands that I loved,
Now that they belong to you in death,
Now that you are within the crowns of trees,
Effortlessly, breathing in and out,
Wandering through the colours of leaves,
The touch of your hands lingers on my skin
And everything beneath, the texture of our love
And affection, you never left me alone,
You were always there until you weren’t.
And then, his hands, the ones I reject,
The ones that act out everything between love and hate,
The ones that erected me, my body, and tried to tear it apart,
Me, to withhold my own pieces from me,
Absorb me, to live and resurrect, I didn’t want to have
Violent hands, and yet I had to fight,
I was taught how to fight, was taught that I had to fight,
Actually that was my own voice wanting to survive,
He taught me to crumble and fall apart,
Take one hit after another and pretend that nothing happened
That we were healthy the way we were, the way we acted,
He wanted me small and self-erasing,
Silent and submissive, but my hands couldn’t,
My body refused, my mind wired itself against you
And the shattering language you failed to impose.
Croque-Melpomene 