These hands.

The same hands that were always automatically grabbed at when crossing the street with her, me as a child. The hands that she’d take in hers, setting them in her lap, when spilling some good news and some bad news. The hands that she would rub to keep them warm when it was chilly out.

The same hands she had compared to my father’s when I was given birth to.. “perfect”, she had called them. The hands she had told me weren’t so small, the way girls made fun of them at school in the sixth grade. The hands I’d use to comfort her back in circular motions with, as she cried when my father left us. 

These hands had committed a murder; took a knife and stabbed my own mother right in the heart, for she was tired. Fuck you, mother.