Have you ever taken the time to look at your hands?

Thank them, shake them, wring them free of responsibility?

Because those hands, they'll serve you well years and years into the future.

They'll be your guide through the darkest times, leading you, helping you feel your way through.

They help you up after you've been knocked down, flat against the ground, holding all your weight.

Those hands, that you so readily take for granted, they are your life.

They've wiped your tears and held your fullest laughs, they've etched your scars and shown you the world.

You've gotten them dirty to clean them off, used them for bad and for good, hurt them and healed them.

Those hands pair with your lovers, those hands allow you to brush the hair aside, to feel his face when you gaze into his eyes.

Those hands will allow you to hold your first-born child, they will discipline them, and they will embrace them with tenderness.

Those hands have shifted from a shaky pencil to the sure curve of cursive, speeding through the keys on a keyboard, texting and writing and communicating.

Those hands have scrawled simple figures, oval-rounded heads and stick arms, advanced on to replication and idealization, further to expression.

Those hands have been small, then larger, have held the weight of the world and more, have shaken when afraid and fumbled when unsure.

They have been shoved in pockets, swathed in gloves, hidden under polish and jewelry, clipped and snipped and handled roughly.

They helped you to crawl, and endured falls as you learned to walk, steadied your spastic legs and guided your curious face.

They gripped the hand of your mother, your father, they pushed and poked at your siblings, they grew with you and learned as you do--right, wrong.

They have proven points and started fights, they have occupied your time, they have been set aside--so poised, waiting for you to beckon them once again.

They have touched a broken friend to give comfort only they could give, clung to your torso at the end of a nightmare, rested so perfectly over your heart as you recognize the country you love.

They have been used, abused, neglected, hated, underrated, unappreciated, mistaken, blamed, shamed, and yet they stay with you--for life, and for death.

They are the trials of time and the stories of life, the good and the bad and the forgotten, the proud and the guilty and the indifference, the all that was, is, and will be.

They are clasped in prayer, begging the mercy of something you can't quite understand, seeking the help you can't seem to find, needing something or someone more than your life.

They are the actions of hatred and anger and pain, of love and caring and hope, the subordinate victims of mind and heart, loyal and loving and grateful.

They are unique and strong, similar and fragile, links to the outside world and the people in it, the things we hold dear to our heart.

They are us.