My Hands

 

My hands can tell you stories

Long before my mouth dares speak.

Once plump with collagen and sweetness,

Soft as Sunday morning lotion,

Untouched by the weight of living,

Full of pride I hadn’t yet earned.

Now the veins rise deep green,

Rivers on brown skin,

And the lines run wild,

Like horses breaking loose on an open plain,

Like they, too, are tired of being tamed.

A palm reader would pause,

Would whisper,

“Baby, your life been something, hasn’t it?”

’Cause I was born too soon,

Six months and fighting,

Cerebral palsy stitched into my story

Before I could even open my eyes.

A tall, lanky, awkward Black girl

With big glasses and a forehead

Full of brilliance I didn’t yet recognize,

Trying—gracefully, desperately—

To fit into spaces never meant to hold me.

But still, I rose.

A high school graduate at seventeen,

A college graduate at twenty-four,

A motherless woman at twenty-five,

Learning grief by heart,

Learning silence by force.

A hopeless romantic

Chasing fairy-tale love

Without the chains of marriage or children,

Letting the world judge

While I learned to free myself.

An aunt at thirty-one

To a little boy who brought back light.

A wife at thirty-three

To a man who saw my spirit

Before he saw anything else.

A wanderer, a traveler,

Feet in foreign soil,

Ears full of new languages,

Heart collecting sunsets

Like souvenirs for my soul.

Now at forty-one,

I feel like I’ve only just begun

To live in fullness,

To breathe in a way that doesn’t hurt,

To claim joy without apologizing.

But my hands,

My dear, sweet hands,

Have held so much,

But not nearly enough.

They still hunger

For what God hasn’t shown me yet.

They still reach

For the life I’m finally ready to live.

And when I look at them—

These veined, lined, holy maps—

I know:

I’ve survived.

I’ve expanded.

I’ve become.

And my hands,

My beautiful Black hands,

Are still writing chapters

Only I can hold.