Stone Hands

With stone hands,

it's hard to reach me.

Each passing second feels elongated,

each moment too far stretched.

With this sensation,

everything gets lost in complication.

I have forgotten the feeling of soft skin.

Now,

being used to the hard stone,

I have become acquainted with the harshness of the world.

No longer do I feel empathy,

for within my heart,

the love which once filled it,

began its evaporation long ago.

In moments such as these,

which I take to reflect on the stone hands

that had fashioned me,

and from which my actions have been fashioned,

I have taken on a new form:

I am no longer a moving picture,

but one of Medusa's victims,

for she spared none who gazed into her eyes.

For I carry worlds on my shoulders,

and my feet have too deeply sank themselves in the bottomless sand.

I, the stone-handed, sink.

The ocean becomes my dwelling,

the waters, with their pure blues,

become my place of torment.

I have spread my soul too thinly,

and now,

with nowhere to swim,

my hands,

my stone-hands,

try to find their home once again.

Yet, I had been partially spared.

Perhaps hope had been kindled within me.

Perhaps I had been granted some mercy,

miserable as it may be.

Yet, whatever grace stretched itself to me

in the moment of my absolute darkness,

let it be known to the oceans and to the worlds

which had seen my stone-hands:

I loved thee equally,

though my hands barely moved.

I loved thee purely,

because the stone was soundproof,

allowing for few things to enter or escape.

I loved thee like a hand loved touch:

softly yet mindfully, for I didn't want to be

too much.