my hands just want to breathe
in honor of my friend Sil Ganzó and the story of how she restored the dignity to a man who was newly arrived from Guatemala…
he was really struggling in a meeting one time for her non-profit and she took the time to see him and realized his deepest struggle was from intense manual labor that caused his hands to be hurt so bad he could no longer draw…
when i heard about this i could not shake the fact that his hands and his art was suffocating
this is written from the perspective of what i thought this man might say about his hands…
my hands breathe when they draw
they feel so light and free
and give the world a little glimpse
into what it is like
to be me
my hands helped me arrive
and make it here
sometimes they touched other hands
sometimes they touched the handle of a door
and other times they reached out
just to lend a hand
of support
of the help and life giving touch
that happens when
someone
simply
gives a hand
but now as i live in this
great nation it seems
you want these hands to disband
no longer do you want them to draw,
to breathe or even to lend
you just want them to bend
to bend
until they break
as they suffocate under the weight of a
type of work no one else wants to take
sometimes i wonder why life here
measures my worth by such difficult labor
when i just want to make beauty with these hands
and delight in the presence
of truly just being your neighbor
you see my hands just want to move a
pencil, a pen…i mean any type of instrument
just to show how far i went
so you might have a window into my soul
but now without the ability to draw
my heart is gasping for air
and truly i just want to
crawl into a hole
so i just want to say
the next time you see hands in the ground
hands in the dirt, hands on the new hall
hands that worked so hard they could
no longer draw
maybe you could lend a hand
or more importantly lend your heart
where as a nation we could never again
stomach someone
having to suffocate their art
we must connect
the collective touch of our hands
to draw up a new way
where there is
more room to breathe
more room to belong
more room for these hands to draw
not to waste our time
trying to put up some silly wall
because i believe
the more we use our hands
to lend
it might just give us each a little time
to heal
and to mend
just long enough
so i can use
these hands again
to bend
but to bend
by feeling the smooth touch
once again
of pressing pen to paper
moving again
with such freedom
breathing life back into
this my art
and giving the world
a little glimpse
a little glimpse
into the tenderness
of my heart
