What's in Your Hand?

What do you hold in your hand everyday?
Something so close, besides your fork,
Or your spoon, that you behold it every day.
That you care for it,
Marvel it, even, sometimes.
What else do you handle that shapes the hand it's in,
While the hand shapes it as well?
Is the top of your steering wheel shiny?
Is your hammer's handle blackened with five stripes?
Your shot shell loader (yeah right) have that oily groove for your thumb?
Can you still read the digits on your phone?
Your remote?


What do you touch with your tips everyday?
Something you carry close, something you need,
But still feel it odd and new?
Does the finger-smudged touch pad on your garage door opener reveal your four digit code to professional economists and amateur mathematicians?
Is the speed dial button for your wife wiped clean by oft ignored then redialed calls?
Do you like the pop of this keyboard's buttons over that?


My hold is my hammer,
The things we've done,
And the heights we've climbed.
I've lost more than I've worn out.
And I've held a hundred,
But I've always kept a chosen few, at least for a while.

No I'm Not

You know how I know I'm not the crazy one, how I'm not the one with all the creepy voices and touching rebukes and scathing replies? Because everyone says I am, and everyone I know doesn't tell the truth like it's meant to be told..or even imagined and not told. Some people I know are about to put the gun in their mouth, smiling the whole time, saying how great they are and how the things they have are so awesome and the smiles keep coming sickeningly out of their faces like yellow pus from an ingrown hair they let fester for a week before they stooped down and did the deed.

You know how I know I'm not a liar, though I may not tell the truth all the time. I tell a truth, and you know when my head hurts or my back or if you're lounging too close too long or if I want to vomit in your face, but you also know if I love you or if I want to be around you or if I trust you--even if it's only true for a year, a day, an hour. I can shine a light on you, and bathe you in heat and happiness and heart. Or I can flick on the hose and douse with frigid delight, watch the curling from the cold and pruney tips, red rimmed eyes.

I'm wary of the people who talk about themselves all the time, even if I am one. I'm wary of people who never use the word I, me, we. I too am weary of the people in between. Non-binary folk, mentioned above, fit for scorn, loose in their emotions like over-sized suits, never baring their gums and never rubbing your coat or scratching your ears. Calm classic citizenry that do nothing for anyone except provide a tax base, a voting public who care that much and not much more. The wary-some folds are louder, so we get drawn to and fro.

Anyway, that's how I know, that's how I know I'm not always the shit to put up with, the litter box smell, or the squeaky windshield wipers, that sometimes there's others' shit to be tolerated and dissuaded and disregarded, then put away. Empty the inbox of sour notes and off key tunes. Keeping the crap makes you crazy, cold, and cringing when the light hits you, when the heat's turned up; waiting for the bill to come in the mail instead of rolling naked in a thin sheet, ditching the security blanket.

My feet clunk just as loud as yours, yes it's true, but I notice the differences and count your reaction and gauge my gait accordingly. That's how I know I'm not crazy, cause I tip on my toes, and bite on my tongue, or I stomp sharply, shrieking to be heard, present company withstanding. So I swim in my suit, loose as it is, though I can change the colour consistent for content and comrades.

Yeah, I ain't the only one that doesn't consider the sounds and smells and the salts in the wounds, but I'm the first one to notice when I should, to not laugh nor point, but notice and almost care, as much about you as I do about me.

Work

Sometimes I look down at my feet and it's a beautiful thing to see; them perched on the slope of an inch and a half wide rafter, thin ankles, footy socks, tanned, everything connected just so, balanced in the air on hardly anything. I was built perfectly for what I do. No real fear, just in the air, to work.

I talk to men, grown men, who speak of their fear of heights, of their inability to carry on in the air and later, on the same day, talk of how tough and kick ass they are. A study in bravado, of bullshit it was.

I've seen these tough guys get woozy at the sight of their own blood. I've seen them have to sit in the shade on a hot day. I've seen them whine about blisters. I've seen them drag their feet around a job sight until ten to quitting where the pace doubles as tools are gathered before going home.

Of course, those days were over one rainy day when I flagged down a car with a couple of los gentes.