My earrings are handmade by hands that don’t love me.
The fingers that bent metal into joyous, beautiful shapes were my own.
But I struggle to love those hands.
I struggle to love the body or mind attached to them too.

I was raised by hands that don’t love me.
Ever since I was small, I’ve known somewhere
that my tiny fingers were only valued
once they grew into working hands.

We shared kisses like tools at a workshop.
There was camaraderie and kindness, but no love.
We held hands out of obligation.
Firmly grasping onto each other’s palms,
We feared that the other would suspect something.
With this thought passing through both of our minds,
We stayed together for months.
Pretending to care for each other,
Believing our lover loved us more,
Living a lie, and trying to believe it.

Food and sleep to stay alive.
Medications to stay stable.
Friends to stay happy.
Love to start living.

What is living? Is it the opposite of dead?
No, that’s survival. Is it eating, and sleeping?
No, that’s being alive. Living is different.
Living is choosing to do those other things for an ultimate concern.
Living is doing more than those things
to experience your life to the fullest capacity possible.

After darkness fell, stars shone on the outside.
On Chestnut Street, he came to her bedside.
He sat by her deathbed, feeding her soup.
Her pale thin lips barely covered the spoon.
He told her stories he’s told her before.
She tries to breathe with ribs frail and sore.
After many hours, she falls gently asleep.
He hears her last breath and prays God, her soul, will keep.

It started with one. A small hole from a nail.
The first on the surface, paint color “Light Hail.”
The next was an accident. A **** with no stop.
They patched it well and carefully covered it up.
Over the years, nails, screws, and anchors,
With shelves, paintings and furniture.
One time, their son poked through with a pencil,
But it did little compared to his teenage knuckles.

The clean pages of paper I write on,
Differ greatly from the Google Doc I type on.
These titanium white sheets will be covered with time,
But an endless stream of opportunities is presented by
The typing exercise, using my computer to cope.
The words that I write encourage my hope.
Poems and prose that echo love and truth.
All the things I learned from my youth.

I miss what I never had.
Gentle reassurance and soft, loving encouragement.
Gentleness was not written in my mother’s movements
like a ballet dancer’s practiced pirouettes.
Her movements were more like my handwriting.
Jagged and coarse. Discordant and unrythmic.
I wonder though, were her movements intentional?
Were they truly meant to hurt and scare?
Or were they an absentminded reflection
of her own hurt and scars?