The first things I noticed were his hands
His nails were a rough yellow
With a wasteland of dirt beneath where there should have been white
His palms were hardened like hammered rock
And covered in as many scars as though it had been hammered
Those were the first things I noticed
He spoke in an eager way
Like he knew how sour things could become
And just wanted everything over with
Before it got angry and grew teeth

If I am a precious person,
I am only precious because of my hands
Pale and dainty,
Structured and bony,
With fat, soft palms
To better hold a paint brush
To better glide color
Over a pale, unexplored land of canvas
I wonder who I would be
If I lost the softness of my untanned hands
And forfeited the strokes of a paintbrush soft enough to spread
A rainbow where there once was nothing

I think he lived in that place
That place where there once was nothing
And I think that’s why his hands are hard and dark
And graffitied with the angry scars of a snarling past
He forfeited his hands, his once soft hands,
So my pale ones could remain soft and unmarred
And could spread color into this difficult world.

I think he lived in that place
So I didn’t have to