How many continents have traveled beneath this flesh
Been held in reverence or punctured on demand?
How many miles of emotions have rolled like oceans and rough seas
Or teased to wonder why?
How many stories held safe?
How many lies of omission never fully crossed the lifelines,
Waiting to be thrown or held back
For lack of empathy
Due to fatigue or some other malady of spirit
On any given day?
How grateful for this amazing extremity is your body
To have held so much
Humanness
In such regard and healing grace?
How privileged
The map of a hand
When placed
Upon another

Becca Lavin is a massage therapist. She is a somewhat mature human consumed with childish glee when surrounded by the arts—visual, tactile, messy, human arts. She is a lover of the written word, the spoken word, the sung word, and small visual delights brought into focus or, purposefully, out.