What Are Your Hands Covered In? Except I psychoanalyze your issues with love

It’s a promise of a forever, an infinity. I will love them forever, no matter how much it hurts.

It is an all consuming thing. I wrap my hands around their heart and I hold it close to mine, and our lifelines beat in sync.

It’s quiet. There is nothing there but the bone deep ache of want and restlessness and a promise of places far more comfortable than this one.

It’s an ugly thing, I would say. It is loud, it is firece. It starts as the frost on the edge of your fingers and soon it is burning you up.

What is it to love? What is it to feel something so deliciously present?

It is silent, barely there. It is the feeling of teardrops or maybe blood on my hands, the feeling of something in my palms that I will wreck myself on.

Why would I? I always have someone by myside, there is always someone in my arms that I love so fiercely and deeply.

Sometimes. I’ve created it, pushed them away. Maybe it’s better, right? I wasnt cut out for this loving people business.

Usually. The loneliness is something that carves out the space beside my heart, reaches into the pockets of my lungs and pokes holes into the sides.

Never. I dont need to rely on other affections to keep myself company. It’s pointless to be so very dependent on something so very fickle.

There’s beauty there. It doesnt matter whether I’m lonely. Every aspect of these human emotions are wonderful because I ame experiencing them to the fullest. (It hurts.)

What does it matter to you?

Maybe. There are still those parts of me that havent gotten taken away, still parts of me that I cling onto. But I’ve changed. I’ve changed, haven’t i?

Yes. Yes I am and I miss those times so much. I was so gentle and carefree and there was nothing to hold me back, only the storms that kept me inside and the shouts that called me closer and–I miss it. I miss what once was.

Yes. I am, but I never want to go back. I was naive, sheltered, selfish. I was…petulent. It doesnt matter that I was just a child. I’m better now, I promise.

No. I think I’ve always been the same, at least in most aspects. I’ve grown, sure, but not in any significant way. I still carry my innocence in the hollow of my bird wing bones.

Autumn. Everything is beautiful, crisp, and everything that burns does so with a piercing finality. The stars are bright in the sky and the taste of cinnamon and dough is always at the back of my throat. Everything will die soon, but right now, it lives in a fire of a brilliance so very bright.

Winter. Only the strongest survive, only the adaptable. There is a tragedy to it, I suppose, but a beautiful one. Everything is dipped in the sparkling snow and icicles of the winter sky, silvery stars reflected back into my eyes. My breath crystallises in front of me, and I can see, truly, a mark I am making on the world.

Spring. It’s the time of rebirth. Crocus and lilies unfurl, fields of wildflowers come back to life as the sun melts away the snow to soak the ground. Birds chirp and flap wildly, shaking the winter frost off of their wings, and the cold gales blow in from the mountains, tasting like honey and pine.

Summer. The heat is all encompassing, pressing sunburn kisses to my forehead and heatstroke nicotine into my vines. The trees are covered in glistening jade, beads of sweat rolling down their waxy leaves. The grass is tall and sways in the heated breeze, the moon pale and round. Skies are on earth now, in the shape of lakes and fields of cornflower, and there is laughter around every corner.

Someone. They have taken everything I have ever had and have thrown it away. They held my heart in their hands and squeezed it out, until all that was left was the picture of how it must have looked when I was a child. I can feel it still, feel as it goes quiet.

Something. It’s a fear, forever morphing into different things. It is a snake’s head or a dog’s snarling snout, the scream of cicadas as they buzz through the forest. I am terrified, I am terrified. There is something following me and I cannot hide, I cannot run, I can only stumble and pray that my fears dont catch up with me.

A memory. It’s something I’ve clinged to forever. It’s something I will hold onto for the rest of my life because I cannot bear to see it go, I cannot bear to let its heat burn out. It hurts more than it probably should, but I dont care. If I didnt have this, I wouldnt have anything. I wouldnt have enough of everything, not enough of the little courage I still have in me.

Myself. I dont know why I’m like this. I dont know why I let myself get lost in the rivers of insect wings and broken hopes, senseless desperations. I dont…i dont need these things, why do I want them? I do not–I cannot understand. I have created a problem by myself. I’m always the problem, arent I? Always always always.

A scene. Something I saw, while walking or running or just thinking. Something I didnt imagine, something borne completely from human inadequacy and hate. They were so full of hate. Each of them, all of them, moving and roiling. Silent or screaming, maybe one, maybe both. Was it anger they all acted on, or sadness? It is the unknowing that scares me.

Desperation. I do not–I dont know how to handle desperation. I dont know how to turn that panic into anything else other than hurt and retribution, I do not know how to pay for the sins I have created. The feeling settles, deep and cold inside of me, and it is not something I can drown. It is not something I can smother.

My siblings. They are all I can trust, all I can love. They are my everything, they are my joy and my sadness and they are the culmination of everything that is good and perfect and I love them so vey much.

My friends, maybe a lover. I try not to think about my blood. I try not to think of the dna strands in my body, how they weave to connect me to the people before me. It’s best not to ponder.

My partner. I only need one. I only need one person and that–that is all I need. Just one person to hold and kiss and hug, one person to share everything with. Things are stronger when they are concentrated in one place, right? Why waste all of that affection by spreading it thin.

My family is anyone I can find. It is anyone I can reach up to and pull them down and hold them close. It is anyone I can find that will give me some sort of kindness, anyone that will stay for longer than five minutes.

No one. Maybe I’ve pushed them away, maybe they’ve pushed themselves away, Either way, they’re gone. I have myself. I have enough. You dont have to be lonely even if you are alone.