if i could rip my fingers off i would. inside each of them is too much passion. too much movement, too much desire. i know i hold it there. and i would hold you there if i could. i hold and release too many notes, too many words in ink and pixel, like broken syringes i let them drip out everywhere, to heal and infect. to mend and corrupt.

it always starts in the fingers. reach and stretch for a pen, moving nimbly like demons on the keyboard, pressing notes from strings and coaxing them come with bow or fingernail. watercolor images fill books in my room, reminding me when i could only see myself from the outside. cut open and bleeding. i let the passion pour then, and it poured and poured and was soaked into paper like a pitcher poured onto dry ground. they were so white then, so tired, but still they filled and filled and poured and poured until i had nothing... and still, they filled. still they fill...

i would if i could, but i cant, i cant because i have let them get so strong. so passionate. they shake with it, they groan and crack with the fire of it. so innocent looking, little white spindles, pinkish nails, birthmark on right middle finger, scar on left pinkie, so deceptive. full of red blood, hot and quick. too eager, too rushed. and they remember, the feeling of an A minor, the atlantic in january, the thick oak wood that grows out west, warm dirt in the summer, the lines of your face. and they want it all, always. ache and reach and beg and fill... and release. if only i had the courage. i could bury them in the yard; nicely funeralized by red-palmed applause.