Hands | Teen Ink

Hands

January 7, 2017
By mena2001 BRONZE, Doral, Florida
mena2001 BRONZE, Doral, Florida
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Hands. I like hands. Hands are supposed to store constellations in them. Hands are supposed to solve the mysteries of someone's heart, they’re supposed to tell you the answer to every secret hidden in even the darkest corners of the universe. I haven't found my hands. My hands don't have any constellations in them. They're just, hands.

My hands have not answered any questions I have. They haven’t answered me why will the stars ever disappear. They haven't answered me where do souls go when they get lost or broken. They haven’t told me why people can fake smiles, or why when they feel so sad inside they can still be happy as all hell. My hands haven’t answered s***.

Where are my hands?

I need to know where my hands are.

I need them so they can show me other answers.

Where are my hands?

After a while, they are here, right with me. They are attached to my body, and they shine like two beautiful stars. They hold answers, all the answers in the universe, yet I can’t read them, and it makes me confused to see symbols and stars and shining light within me because I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t understand what meaning they could possibly hold. I know they are here. I know they are part of me. I feel them, and I feel their power. But just as once upon a time I knew what it all meant, what I was capable of, today I see nothing. I am empty with fullness and I cannot understand or see why this has happened to me. I used to be so alive. So beautiful. So sad. And I’m still sad, but no longer beautiful. And I am no longer alive, except for when I’m dead.

Because death is to me like my own body having lost hands pasted all over it. They belong to no one, they’re not useful anymore. I am filled to the brim with shattered bones inside those hands, but they mean nothing, and nothing is death. So why does death feel like life to me? Why is it that the moment where I am the most alive is when I’m dead? Because having those pieces of nothing clinging to me calls for attention, and I begin to wonder and ask, why do I feel this way? And this call for consciousness wakes me up, and being awake means being alive.

To me, in my palace, in my own world, I am beautiful. The hands that stick to me disappear, fall apart like dust on top of my naked feet. When I’m by myself my own hands begin to glow, and everything is clear. It's as if death didn’t exist anymore, only me, only they. The world is away, and so am I. Sometimes, when I’m alone, and the eyes of the Devil can't hunt me down anymore, I lay on my bed in peace. The roof of my room opens, and the white walls dissolve away. All I can see now on top of me is a starry sky, and it's so big and magnificent. I can see every star, every planet and every galaxy there is. I’m blissfully aware of all there is, of all that there will be and all that there used to be. And in those moments, when I’m realizing how truly little I am, and how beautiful that miniature importance is, my hands, the real ones that hold meaning, start to shine. They go up on their own accord, and with them goes my body. My own hands, my beautiful hands, I see them, they’re here, and they’re taking care of me. Finally, my hands help me fly and see things that are impossible to the naked eye.

I wonder, if I had hands permanently, not just when I’m alone, if I could find them once and for all, or give them as much meaning and life as they had once before, would I be happier? Would I be lonely? Would I have changed? Would I have one face only, instead of a shell that keeps the real me inside, screaming for help, screaming at me to stop, stop faking it, stop trying to be more than who I really am? I wish I could stop trying to helplessly imitate the glow that good hands have when I’m not alone and in the mercy of the Devil's eyes, because the only thing that I can achieve is a sickly and artificial yellow light, feeble and weak.

When I was a child, my hands were full. I could talk to the wind. Sometimes, I was the wind. Nowadays, I can’t even talk to myself. I don’t understand, I can't understand who I am anymore.

I wish I did. I wish I could be myself again. I wish I had hands.

Where are my hands? 

Why are they lost?

Where are my hands?


The author's comments:

Hello! My name is Clementina, and I am 15 years old. When I wrote this piece, it was to convey a feeling of emptiness that is with me almost all the time. When it's not fully present, the reminder of it still puts a weight on my shoulders. I wanted to write this not only to vent, but so that perhaps someone else can read it and identify with it. The world we live in is very lonely, and I know that seeing something that feels similar to your own problems can make you feel like maybe you belong more than you think. That even if you are, technically speaking, one in the bunch, you are  more part of the universe than you think. 


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