Third one, autobiographical, as are the first two. This one has nothing at all to do with music.

Damage

I'm sorry, the surgeon says.

I'm seventeen and my hands are destroyed. They're barely recognisable; the tendons are displaced, the bones bent, the skin puckered and burned.

Wow, says the surgeon, and carefully moves the light, examining the carnage. I've never seen damage quite like this.

I picked up the back end of a Cadillac - amazing stuff, adrenalin. We fell off a mountain, I thought my goddaughter was underneath. The metal was hot.

We may not be able to fix it, the surgeon says.

Sweating, I manage to bend all the fingers of my right hand except the middle.

Oh, that's funny. In a brilliant way. I like how, to me, it's in response to the surgeon's intellectual response to her emotional pain.

Geez, Deb. That's white-hot fuckyou, Dr. Kildare, isn't it?

Like I said, autobiographical. He was astonished by it - it took about 45 seconds to do it, too.

Man, I was a musician. Don't tell me you can't fix this shit.

Man, I'm an angsty teenager if ever there was one. And I'm not even a teenager. Anyway, first submission:

I wonder what it would feel like to take her hand in mine. To take her hand, to feel her touch, to connect physically, intimately, for the first time.

And holding would lead to squeezing, and squeezing to caressing, and then, suddenly, the future...

I'll be playing with her fingers. One by one I'll count them and rub them, as I tickle her palms. Our hands, our bodies, our lives - connected. A kiss, a smile, and I'll lie down next to my love, my only love, and be happy.

If only...

If only I could take her hand.

That's ultrasappy, dude. But it's sweet.

Our hands, our bodies, our lives - connected.

This is a nice bit, and I think one that could be expanded. As it stands, it's still a bit over the top, but I like the concept.

Of course it's sappy. I'm a sappy guy.

Also, I kinda meant it to be over the top.

Don't you ever get super-sappy-gross when you first have a real crush on somebody? Most of the poem is meant to be imagination, the overactive, impossible imagination of somebody (me) when in the earliest, flirtatious, not-even-a-relationship stages of a relationship. A silly dream of the perfection that might be, but probably won't.

Also, I kinda meant it to be over the top.

Oh, good. Then you succeeded!

Wonderful drabbles, everyone. I have a couple of ideas, but I need to think about it a bit more.

The skin of his knuckle is split. He does too many things, presenting his body with myriad opportunities to hurt itself. It will heal, though, and quickly. Speed is one of his talents, always fast to develop, fast to learn, and fast to move.

I look at his calluses; press his work-earned roughness between my softer palms every chance I get. I wonder what they're like when he is unhurried; imagine the slow friction of his fingertips dragging lightly against tender skin. Can they still be sensitive, or would I have to make up for that elsewhere on his body?