looking down and thinking

love,

there was an evening when we were in the car driving back from somewhere--the memory escapes me--and we started discussing our lists. the ones we made for our future mates. mine was riddled with descriptors of a man with dark eyes and a crooked half smile and a thousand other things i never knew i didn't want.

but you had only one: your wife would have pretty hands.

and though i've loved you with my core, i feel i have failed you on this.

because my hands aren't pretty. they are marred by hangnails and big cracked knuckles. when i was younger and fell in love with writing, i gripped my pencil so tightly and at such an odd angle that it left me with a permanent callus on my right ring finger. i am nervous, and bite my nails to the quick. and in the wintertime, even cold lotion from the fridge cannot turn the mountains of my joints from their crimson wash.

but there's a tan line on my left hand. from a ring never removed. that's stayed in place while i pulled weeds, cleaned our bathroom, mixed meatloaf and a million other messy things. a symbol that though my hands aren't the ones of your dreams, they are yours nonetheless.

and that has to count for something, no?