i have a fascination with hands
In the pursuit of rawness, I give poems better suited for the notes app a platform
rope burn
you can't wash your hands of me. i'll cling to your fabric for as long as you let me and then some. scrub, twist, until your knuckles split. skin frays like thread if you try hard enough. i was taught that all hand scars fade with time, so i still check the line on my thumb. i sigh only in relief when it's still there. faded, still there. i could be your thumb scar. pain is a reminder, not a lesson. you have nothing to learn from me except that i am steadfast. my turbulence is perpetual. a moon cycle. the moon is a coincidence, beautiful name for the squelch of your organ. i scratch at your person, but you keep me under your nails. let the memories be bittersweet.
I had resolved to not treat my publication as a personal diary when I created my Substack, and yet, here I am. I reserve this explanation, what would ordinarily be a pre-emptive critique of my heavy-handed metaphors and amateur subject matter for the end, in the hopes that this poem can exist to you before I press all my intentions into your brain.
I return to form in this poem, and I don’t mean the quatrain. Rather, form signifies the way I began my vested interest in poetry: as emotional catharsis. I had hoped all my lessons in developing craft would make me a writer who could write poetry clinically, as if there is ever such a thing. Instead, I return to catharsis with this notion of craft folded into the words I choose.
This explanation is no different from the caveats I usually have before sharing my work or the overly sardonic 2024 in review I abandoned because I couldn’t stomach looking at it anymore. I explain, and then I feel. I feel and explain at the same time. I feel, and then I justify, clarify, legitimize. One day, I will feel without remorse. My explanation will get shorter and shorter until it vanishes from the page.
For now, I offer you this poem, the only one whose urgency I feel so strongly I’ll publish it before my brain catches up.
To the people and fleeting memories this poem is about, thank you, even if I’m rather upset right now. 2025 is an exercise in feeling.