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Stained Glass
December 23, 2019
Church, Christmas eve:
The backs of my hands cracked like stained glass.
My fingers smelled of hand sanitizer
When I brought them to rosy young lips in prayer,
Waiting for answers in the stained glass above.
A pastel Jesus on the cross, bloodied and broken,
But beautiful.
Starlight piercing through it,
And I think there might have been a smile on his lips.
It was the industrial sort of hand sanitizer,
Strong and it did the job.
It didn’t smell like much, but it smelled clean.
My hands, bloodied and broken,
Clean.
© MacMillan
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This piece is inspired by my personal struggles with germaphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. I remember thinking that the cracks in my hands from over-washing them look kind of like stained glass, and when I thought of stained glass, I immediately thought of church, so I wanted to paint that image. I wash my hands so much sometimes that they bleed, but in those moments, the only thing that matters to me is that they're clean.
Note: I tried to find an image, but it isn't allowing me to see them. I can't submit without one, though, so I just selected a random one. I apologize.