Posted by Anonymous on 2013/11/19 under Uncategorized My fingers are pale, slender, and small. The skin by my nipped nails cracks from the fading fall wind and years of hard-worn abuse. They do not get wrapped in silken lotions and leather gloves, but rather are bathed in mud and harsh soaps day after day without fail. Lines embedded into my palms spin tales of my future, but their false-filled words fall upon deaf ears. The lies of the heartline can’t fool these grasping hands that yearn to be held again. My fingers have not intertwined with those of another since I was old enough to tie my own trainers. They lust for the warmth of another, a memory lingering almost beyond the veil, but they know none will come. Still they tremble for a reassuring grasp, another hand to hold them dear, or something more lovely still. I’ve been alone for far too long. —- I cannot remember a time when a hug was not fleeting. No kiss has ever graced these lips. The world has become hollow for me, at the tender age of fifteen, and I know there is little hope left. The air around me is seldom filled with anymore affection than dead compliments from ill-attentive lips. I hold back the need to cling to another being to reassure myself that the heartbeat I hear in my head when the world grows quiet is not simply a memory that won’t fade away. It thrums in my head like the tune of a drummer boy marching off into a war that will never be won. He stomps and he sways down a foreboding path, filled with apathy and ignorance. Somewhere in me, I can feel the enemy on the horizon. They are ready to silence his beating as soon as the drummer boy catches his eye. There is no safe haven here, on this planet, for a person such as me. I’ve gone it alone since I could spell my own name and no one has felt the need to change that. At some time unbeknownst to me, I seemed to have signed into a contract. Binding, it proclaims I shall never be held again. Not for so long as the boy marches on and the world continues to thrum. This is my eternity and it burns like hell. ~Little Lamb