Inked Hand

Your face is plastered on the wall.

I turn to my left, and you are there. To my right, there you are. I close my eyes, and I see you. The grinning face of a false promise. How many in here fell for a grinning face? Courageous eyes? The chance to escape? I can almost feel the heat from your palm all those years ago.

Memories are an odd thing. Some you admit to yourself that you can no longer trust. Others you swear are concrete in your mind. Yesterday or a decade ago, some images remain crystal. That is what you are to me. The commitment I gave you is crystal. I remember something felt off, but I talked myself down. The loosening grip of a regretted handshake. I felt my hands retreat, but it was too late, and the conclusion fucking calmed me. It was the end and the beginning. Decisions are comforting if you can push down the fear. God, I wish I let that rise. Instilled in me that any paranoia is unhealthy, and you knew that. Those courageous eyes were animalistic, you saw me struggling to keep up with the pride, and you took your chance. And here I am.

My frustration, in here, means nothing. Like professing your belief in God to a group of clergymen. They all ignore me. I think they see my desperate and unjustified need for sympathy. I can’t wipe it off my face. Been a year now, and still, I must effervesce some repugnant, yet generic, odour.

One day, at lunch, I couldn’t move. No fear of harm or any of the other horror stories you hear about places like this. Na, I just froze. Staring down at my hand, the hand he took in, chilled my bones to inaction. They were inked. Owned. A barcode from a written off piece of stock. My eyes darted around the room to see more and more hands. Some clenched, and others calmly utilised their cutlery. All marked, though. All inked.

I landed on a pair of hands riddled with scars. Things got warmer. I imagined fingerprints plastered around the room. One on top of another. Stains from years prior. An indiscriminate array of melting human flesh. Walking fingerprints in line for a coffee. All their frustrations smothered into lukewarm kettle water. Most prints float down into the water, whilst others, mine, repeatedly prod the faulty ignition. It does not work. We do not work. Tepid.

This is not the life I wanted. I was failed, but I failed. Just like everyone in here. I am starting to understand now. Our colloquial trauma is our shared regretted handshakes. The last of our mistakes. I can see the bond. I stand now in equal height. I belong here.

Cheers