i have clumsy hands.

i've been neglecting this post in favor of Notes to Self, but recently i discovered a few non-comedy mini-journal entries that i felt impelled - in accordance with the promise i made to myself, of sharing all of my writing - to post here instead.

the following is an example of Drunk Vickie's poor penmanship and penchant for the poetics (and slightly more emo ramblings).

or some poor excuse for them.

i'm no writer and i'm saptastic to a fault:

I have clumsy hands. They stiffen at my sides when I'm about, keeping to myself. They twitch, itch to reach out and touch things their limbs - attached to my guilt, which seems to constantly outweigh curiosity - forbid them to touch.

The knuckles crack and bend in ways they shouldn't, interjecting when my voice has nothing to contribute.

They stutter when I write, become inky with accidentally blotted mistakes that run across the rest of my words in smudges and smears.

Sometimes they don't feel like hands at all: dumbbells that hold me back, making me all the more aware of the awkwardness of my entire body.

Or they're weightless and with minds of their own, belligerently swinging or pointing or poking, my innards squirming with instantaneous regret and humiliation.

Sometimes they're monsters.

Famished, insatiable.

They ache with hunger pangs, coveting contact.

To pick at and pull out my voice, pulling strand after strand of words lost, phrases confused, thoughts disfigured.

Throbbing - my heart pumping into them the want and beating voice that gets my attention - so I have no choice but to comply.

To go on lamenting the fact that I have nothing and no one else with which, whom, to nourish them.

They rejoice in my drunkenness - the loosened hold of my guilt that allows them to inarticulately speak for me, show affection my lips and chords are otherwise too cowardly to express.

Grab things and create the illusion of a temporary ownership.

Connection.

And then they become too eager.

Earnest.

The bottle cap to their full and shaken yearning finally explodes and they live up to their infantile and clumsy reputation by flying like shrapnel any which way all over their victim.

Soon after, another bottle moves down the conveyor belt, top open, awaiting jilted temptations and silenced protestations and affirmations. What with the likely dismal consequences of the previous pop, this new bottle is packed with a revitalized fervor.

Capped again.

Shaken again.

Embarrassed again.

Next.

They seem to fight back: regret belonging to the rest of this, want to be attached to someone more deserving of their curiosity and need to make. They're a large dog, fed up with my measured steps and dragging me along.

They rush, I try to keep up, trip over myself, and land on my face.

They wish they were a carpenter's hands, harmonizing machinery with craftsmanship.

Scarring with experience and satisfying caresses of their tools and their handiwork.

Building calluses from repetitious but worthwhile labors: hard work that both builds and satiates their appetite.

Their newly hardened touch will make for firmer grips, affectionate and practical.

They tell the world they're learned, they create.

They have the strength to give as well as to take.

As they are now, one would think they were spoiled: soft with naivete; long, the better to touch you with. The thinness and knobbiness and length are an illusion.

The kinds of things that suggest delicacy and prowess: strangers to these parts.

Their form is misleading, lying to passersby.

Present themselves as something more deliberate than they are.

If they are in any way delicate, it must actually be because of the inhibitions trying to keep the capped earnestness at bay.

Everything touched is a relic.

But I don't hate my hands: the feelings aren't mutual. At times, they may not feel like my own, but they feel.

Sometimes they're the only concrete proof of my self.

That I am here.

The fact that they pine, so painfully, is, in a strange way, heartening.

Desire is passion, passion is sometimes agony.

But if this pain livens us - makes us more aware of our humanity by spilling itself, warm and red, into every facet of our lives - then it's essential and honest and beautiful.

They do make mistakes.

I have regrets.

But I also have a new sense of vigor - to run and try my best to catch up.

To be a breadwinner.

To create and give back.

Maybe someday my tapered nature will be reconciled with the overzealous neediness of my hands.

Someday, they'll touch something wonderful.

Something wonderful will come from my touch.