Poeta Nascitur, Non Fit

3

Wednesday's I eat alone, it's the same as every day.

At night I like to reminisce, back when I had all of you.

Thursday afternoon someone's hand brushed mine.

That night I couldn't sleep. Instead, I sat up thinking about life

and how cruel it is, always changing.

How a simple touch can be enough to comfort me.

And for a moment I stopped thinking about you,

because someone touched me, and it wasn't a memory.

It wasn't a whisper in my head or the ghost of your hand

On my shoulder. It was present, it was warmth.

Then it was gone.

I think about that touch as I rub my hand across my lips.

I'm trying to hold it together, but it's hard when I'm alone.

The pain seeps in so easily then.

Now every night for days on end I think about my hand.

I try to remember the feeling of when someone brushed my skin.

It's not fair how cruel this world is,

when such a simple action can be taken against me.

My thoughts absorbed and hands they ache thinking of that day

and I can't concentrate on anything, but that spot

between my thumb and pointer finger.

Now it's been a week. It's been seven days.

And still, I feel that hand on mine, the warmth it created.

I'm so secluded and it infuriates me,

I hate what that hand revealed. I wish I could see it again because I'd burn it.

I'd chastise it for trying to coax me, make me feel.

But I need so much more of that touch.

It's scary, terrifying actually.

That an accidental touch could hurt me so.

That simple human contact that I never get here.

But I won't seek it out, I refuse to stoop that low.

I'd rather be surrounded by my own lonely stench.

I'd rather wait to be back home enveloped in family, or else

wait for someone else's hand to brush me.