Typewriter Series #436 by Tyler Knott Gregson

Text for Tired Eyes:

There’s something special about hands.
I don’t know what or why or even where it comes from
but I could sit, stare
and watch hands move
and make and sooth
and create and tie
and wash and dry
and manufacture magic
out of the pure nothingness the air provides them
when they illustrate the words
that float from your lips.
There are stories, so many stories,
in the wrinkles of palms and the tiny smiles
where your thumb’s knuckle decides to bend.
What will these hands say, when roughed and
scarred and wrinkled and slowly clenched closed?
What, when our bodies pull our fingers to a
quiet fist in a final act of defiance against
the aging we are fighting, will those stories
be? These hands will be cut and burned and
blackened with ash as we sift through what we
set fire to.
We are the remains when the excuses have been
burned down and the colors of life will hide
under our fingernails. We are these hands
tough but gentle and strong but soft. We, like
they were made for building and holding
painting and writing and drawing inkless art
on the canvas of bare skin. Listen to the
words my hands say as they trace the lines of
yours, hear the whispers as they cartwheel down
your back. These hands tell stories and I’ll
spend my life wondering what your hands tell my
hands when your fingers find my fingers
and wrap tightly around.