RubinLeigh, age 22 (alum)
Illinois
I was sitting in class playing with my fingers. It started with just picking a hangnail, but then I started looking, and I mean really looking – the shape of my hands, the size, every jagged nail, cut and stain. I’ve always been overly critical of myself as a person, the things I do and say, and my body. But to the backdrop of my professor telling us to just write what we feel, I realized that one part of me I truly love, with no strained or complicated relationship, is my hands. So right then and there I jotted this down.
My Hands
I love my hands.
I find them beautiful.
They aren’t particularly slender and long like my older sibling’s.
They aren’t perfectly proportioned like my younger sister’s.
They aren’t soft, aged and gentle like my mother’s.
They aren’t strong and worn, yet elegant and feminine like my father’s.
My hands are small and short like a child’s.
No expert skincare,
or perfect mani.
I am no model,
but my hands are the most beautiful that I know.
Dead skin growing over deep and torn nail beds,
Hangnail and cuts all over my fingers,
pen stains and calluses that seem to never leave me,
my hands create.
I love my beautiful hands.