Hands

I tell you I need another pair of hands to clean the blood. And you cut your hands off. Participation makes you feel undesired, as if you’re no longer a striking image of the wanted, but just another reflection of light who gets his hands dirty. And so, you cut your hands off. I'm left begging for hands, any hands, to clean this never-ending spill. 

It goes, it goes, it goes. 
Blood loops into bleach, and then, fire always follows. 

There was so much smoke in my eyes. Translucent grey, mischievous but rigid. What do you do with smoke? How do you tell smoke to leave? Where does it go? Does it vanish or does it haunt? I open the window to let fresh air in. Am I letting fresh air in, or am I letting the smoke out? Is someone entering this room the second you’re leaving? Are you leaving, or are you leaving me? I've learned, bitterly so, there's a razor-thin line in that distinction. Unwanted, unasked, it slices through the fabric of everything. But whatever the reason behind your departure might be, the action is completed. You could be leaving. The room will bear the lack of you. You could be leaving me. The room will bear the lack of you. I will not entertain these questions. 

And so, you leave. The smoke leaves. Yes, you left, abandoning your hands like discarded carcasses upon the cold, indifferent bedroom floor. I don't know what to do with them at all. They are not birds, they do not flap their fat wings and fly out of the window as the smoke does. They're not cats or dogs, no leash to tug, no walks to calm the unrest. No, they really are terrible company. I speak of the hands, I write of them, I sing of them, I dream of them. I try everything to take back the power. When I write of something, am I making its presence larger? Or am I declaring my power over it? Do descriptions weaken objects? When one learns of the workings of a thing, does it lose its magic? When you love someone, do they become unlovable? I wonder if these hands were not yours, and if they were left on my porch overnight, would I try to hold them? I wonder if they were still attached to your arms, would they try to make things better? I do not entertain these questions. 

 I know that I was on my knees for two hours and thirty-six minutes. Then I bathed myself. Bruises are better than wounds- with blood gushing out. Bruises bloom like flowers and change colors and wither away with time. Memories bloom too, perverse and embellished, from the barren dirt of my mind. And the most powerful memories distort and twist the most violently. The event of your leaving involved no blood, no fire, no smoke, no severed hands. Your hands are intact (but not untouched) and I find that to be unbearable. I was on my knees for two hours and thirty-six minutes. I’ve earned my bruises like money. Your body is scarred by your own hand, making me believe life doesn't deem you worthy of its ugliness. You do it to yourself. And I punish myself by nursing your wounds, cleaning up the blood, getting headaches from the scent of the bleach, inhaling the smoke, watching you leave, tossing your body away. When your body's all gone, I'm always left with my own. 

You own every inch of me. I keep nothing of you. I could keep the hands. But I couldn’t. It would be against everything I know. I know very little but I get by. I know when you’re leaving, and I know when you’re leaving me. I know when to get on my knees. I know when to speak, and when to not. I get the last bit wrong most of the time. Speech is irrelevant, it is futile, fruitless. Words are mere sounds that swirl in the air briefly before silence takes over. And I speak too much. I was taught many words as a child. I was taught that words and sounds could explain this thing we were born into. So why, then? Why all these figures of speech? Why all these articulate silences? Why has my incessant babbling not forced your legs to disobey you and made you walk back and cry out for forgiveness? 

I look at your photograph and I flip it around and look at the beigeness engulfing the back of it. Do you reside in the beigeness just as you do on the other side? I look at your photograph and turn it upside down to envision your eyebrows beneath your eyes. I try everything to take back the power. Then I bathe myself. I know when you’re leaving, and I know when you’re leaving me. You’re leaving me, now. 

Then I bathe myself.