On love and fingertips

I love so, so deeply. There is no other way that could possibly be ingrained so far into me. Through slicing cuts of hurt that scar over and leave it trapped and through tight hugs that squeeze the truth into my soul. Tears that fall, laughs that soar; it is all a wondrous discovery of just how much of it there is to feel.

Each person I love is a part of me. Each breath they take steals air from my lungs even as I wish I could give more. To feel their fingertips. 

Fingertips. People love the nape of their lover’s neck, the arms of their mother, the space between an ear and a jaw and the beautiful curve of a hip bone, or a back. No one talks about the love of fingertips. 

How they preface every handshake, every wave. How they are the most sensitive parts of a hug. How they come alive with sex, deep inside soft tissue, or how they ache with pain at a hard day’s end. How they form written words and follow along, letter by letter, accentuating our understanding of what it all means. 

They are the uniqueness of us. They brand us our own person in the individual lines of each print, but they also are a worn sign of who we are. Calloused from work, soft from love, pinched with anxiety, crinkled from a long shower, creatively stained with leftover paint, scared from drunken cigarettes and decorated with the jewelry that proves to the world who it is we want to be. 

When I say “I love you”, when I mean it fully with every part of my soul, every corner of my mind, I mean I love you to your fingertips. 

• 

• 

•