My Hands

Today was the final session of my creative writing course, and, to cap what was a successful venture that I'm finding it hard to walk away from, I'd like to post one last piece I wrote for class. Originally, I was going to post a piece that I notice I've posted before (not even double digit posts in and I'm already wanting to repost stuff), but I'm going with my favorite free write trigger response.

This piece was written as a stream of consciousness, but I adapted it to a free-verse poem format when I submitted it for our class anthology. Not sure if I feel it added anything to piece or if I just wanted it to not look like a chunk of text on a page. My guess is the latter.

My Hands

My hands are rough,

unless liberally moisturized.

My hands are strong,

unless I'm grasping for my dreams.

These things are true,

but will they always be true.

Will these hands of mine,

which now scribble on this page,

always fail me?

It's not fair to characterize these hands,

which build

and make

and do,

as the parts of me that leave me

dangling.

If my hands could have their say,

they might grab my heart with vice-like intensity.

They would shake and shake

my bewildered heart until it beat,

truly beat,

with a desire, a yearning.

They would drop that beating, passionate heart and march onward.

Onward and upward,

until they laid sight upon a motionless gray mass.

There, they would beat upon that gray matter like a war drum,

announcing to the brain and all its minions and lackeys that it is time to do.

Do the passions of the heart

with a sharpness

and clarity

and focus

that hasn't yet been achieved.

These hands of mine

would like to move mountains.

I'm going to miss that class.