By Olivia Steen

Her fingers have started to twist
Pretty, fragile hands 
Breaking to rearrange in an uncomfortable order 
Slow torture 
Cut her hair, can’t brush it anymore
Starfish hands 
So separate from one another
That thumb
Cannot be pointer finger’s neighbor anymore
They have become strangers
A painful separation, vacant space between

Cannot grasp her child’s hand
Nonetheless hold it

Solidifies that old age does not always contaminate the bones
It’s in the blood
The genes 
What can that imply of drugs justifying the means
To sooth the pain
Of discomfort 
Of depression
Loosen the tension with more medicine
The devil disguised himself as disease 
Arthritis took over the hands of a lover, a mother
And what is breaking in between