Lines for the Right Hand

 
When I imagine my right hand gone,
the pain I feel then
is less than when I imagine you gone.

To think of you, to see you,
I need you far less
than I need this right hand.
Without you, in fact, I see you more clearly...

With this right hand I strike
the keyboard endlessly, key after key,
and bring you close to me.
Right before my eyes, a breath away!
Then it doesn't matter if you don't really come.

Sometimes my right hand's fingers
ache terribly, growing numb with pain...
Even thinking you're not in my life
doesn't hurt nearly as much.

When my right hand's fingers, my wrist
begin to ache, I'm filled with dread.
I keep thinking, if they ever give out,
how will I survive from that day on?

If this right hand truly became useless,
perhaps this entire life would be rendered meaningless!
Yet I've never felt that without you
life would lack so much.

This right hand, these fingers and wrist
keep me alive more
than you have ever kept me alive.
Not even now. I don't know about tomorrow.

Whether my moments pass in unhappiness,
whether my heart stays melancholy,
whether I feel like crying a little,
whether some sorrows need spilling,
whether some anger or hurt wants to surface,
whether any suppressed tears are trapped in my chest,
whether I'm suffocating—
you've never been able to know any of this.
Only this right hand has been the faithful witness.

You're happy when you see me laugh.
You don't want to know
about the sadness behind that laughter. That it hurts
to keep acting relentlessly, you cannot understand.

So far, in this world, there's only one
who has accepted me wholeheartedly and honestly,
just as I am—my right hand.

You've taken my exuberance day after day,
but never been companion to my anxieties. That time was never yours!
You've understood my words, never my wordlessness.
You've wanted me, never wanted my solitude.
The friend who has silently accepted
all of this—
that is, my right hand—
my partiality and love for it is deeply genuine.

I don't think about whether you'll leave or stay.
Even if you leave, I won't be completely alone.
Some un-poems, some un-prose, some un-stories,
and such un-writing will at least keep me alive.
But if this right hand ever becomes useless,
from that day on, living would truly be very hard.

O God, if you really love me,
then give my right hand a long life.