By Humberto Valdez
My hands have no flesh, not even bone.
Texture and sensation are no longer present in my fingertips.
My hands have been chopped off by life itself,
only severed wounds and nothingness remain.
The universe figured they were of no use to me nor anybody else.
They were a gift I was given and chose to neglect;
a waste of space.
How selfish I was, to ignore a blessing simply because I was too afraid.
Had only there been somebody to use them,
to put them to work like a mother.
A mother who caresses her baby’s cheek.
One who cares for her child, not because she needs to,
but because she desperately wants to.
I wish I could know how other people feel.
What is it like to caress somebody, or even to be caressed?
It doesn’t matter,
I don’t want somebody to tell me what it feels like,
I want to experience it for myself.
But, I guess I’ll never know.
For now, in this life, I shall be useless,
left alone to rot and bleed to death.
Well, maybe not bleed to death,
but to die of neglect.
I think that a lot of us teenagers feel that we won’t fall in love, and this is kind of how I would describe that feeling, by having your hands chopped off. Because, when you think of having a partner, you imagine touching them, holding their hand, running your hands through their hair, and without your hands, you can’t do any of that. It might possibly be the worst punishment in a sense, but if you keep this mindset, you almost feel that it’s what you deserve.
