My Hands

My hands look different. More wrinkles, gashes, and my skin is weathered. Sun beat even. Tiny hairs are now appearing on my knuckles, I swear they weren’t there before. Is this an age thing?

Should I be using more lotion?

Are there anti-aging face masks I can use on my hands?

Why do I care?

They look like they belong to a much older man. They look labored and worn. My knuckles crack almost every time I bend them, I shouldn’t have popped them so much when I was a kid. I was warned. Wait, is that real? I should google it later.

They hurt when it’s cold now. They never used to do that. I can’t remember one time when I was a kid complaining about the bones in my hands hurting from cold weather. Not once.

Sometimes they even go numb and don’t get me started on my toes. I couldn’t tell you if they were still attached to my feet or not. They go completely unnoticed until I bang them against something on accident.

When did a coffee table leg become my worst enemy?

Probably around the same time I stopped being able to eat pizza after 10 p.m.

I mean, legally I’m still able to eat it, but at what cost? At my age, bad gas gets mistaken for a heart attack more than twice a week.

I’m not old by any means, but I am getting older. Old enough to notice that my hands look different. The veins poke out like straws under my skin when I make a fist. Like a river that’s split in several directions.

I have a cut on my left hand that hasn’t fully healed. It’s been almost a month, I think. When I was a kid, I could cut one of my fingers off and it would be fully regrown later that afternoon.

Maybe I should put a band-aide on it. Is it too late for that? How long are you supposed to leave band-aids on? I feel like I always get it wet within the first few hours of putting it on and it slips off right away.

My fingers are thin and boney, but I’m not sure what the ideal hand weight is supposed to be. I guess I could look up some photos of hand models and see if any of them get a rise out of me but I don’t think it would work. I’ve never met anyone in real life and thought, “Wow, they have really nice-looking hands.” I’ve never understood that fetish, with feet that is. No matter how nice someone’s feet are, I’ve never thought about fucking them. Not once.

My hands look a lot like my grandmother’s hands. That’s something you don’t hear every day.

“He has his mother’s eyes, his father’s chin, and his grandmother’s hands.”

My hands look different. Frail yet strong. Clean yet taxed. Wrinkled, freckled, and hairy.

My hands… My hands… My… MY?!

Maybe I don’t own them. Maybe, they own me. Maybe I am attached to them and not the other way around. They do all the work, I’m just a freeloader reaping the benefits. They greet new people. They wash me. They feed me and hold glasses of water to my mouth. They gently move the hair out of my lover’s face so I can see them better right before we kiss.

They do everything for me. I do not own them, they own me. They are writing this right now and want you to know that they are tired of being underappreciated and unnoticed.

LOOK HOW POWERFUL WE ARE hkdhoahsfoanfoiaofjaomfcomooivjoiaoraoejoamsoc

Sorry! — I think I have them under control now.

My hands look different because they are different. They are special. They are unique. They are loved and appreciated. I will do better at showing that. Because, well… my hands know all my passwords by heart.