Young Writers Society

A/N: I can't figure out the spacing, and I've tried the Shift+Enter thing, so if anybody would like to help me out, that'd be great. Also, any spelling errors are intentional. 

My hands shake, now. 

My mother says it’s just from the caffeine I drink, 

or the break

fast I don’t eat, but I eat breakfast and I on

ly have one cup of coffee a day. 

I’ve had a disease in the tendons of my hands since the ninth grade.

When the doctor diagnosed them, I went home and did my re

search, the way I was raised to do. 

I looked up symptoms: 1)

muscle atrophy.

Those words, like a heavy

weight champion’s final punch, found my gut and wrenched it,

hard. 2)

Tremors.

I can’t open any twist-capped bot

tles. I can barely grip my pen with a steady hand.

I can’t hold my lipstick still. My hand jerks when I’m hold

ing my water bottle, and water flies every

time. 

My hands, the tools of my trade, have betrayed me, fin

ally.

I can’t hold my baby niece for more than fift

een minutes.

How will I hold my own children?

How will I write with a pen? 

There is no cure for this, and if they find a cure for the physical ill

ness, there’s definitely no cure for the mental damage done.

To hold your hands as steady as you can and watch them act on their own is terrify

ing.

To set your baby niece down and watch your hands twitch an

d jerk, the same hands that had just held a fragile life, a

nd to wonder what could’ve happened if you had

n’t set her down at the right time. 

To play the same song on the piano that you have play

ed your whole life and for

get the notes, and miss your favorite part of the song,

and miss a simple riff, and

miss the chords. 

To go to grip a door handle, and falt

er.

To try to type a par

agraph, and mistype a simple word, even af

ter years of typing practice. 

To watch your hands, knowing what’s happening be

neath the surface of your skin, and to won

der how it will degenerate in the years to come. 

Will I be able to hold a pen at all? 

Will I be able to open a door?

Will I be able to type? To turn a

page? To hold his ha

nd? To tie my shoes? Will I be able to play the pia

no at all?

Because losing control of my hands would be like duct

taping my mouth shut forever, and

I love to scream and lau

gh.

The tremors wors

en when I’m nerv

ous. 

The band concert scared the ginger, when he saw the

m for the first time: my hands as uncontro

llable, wild things, things not mea

nt to be held or soothed, but

ttamed. 

I was on the verge of being sick with nerv

es; I was in charge of the trian

gle. Triangles require fierce control of the fine

motor nerves, the nerv

es that are wasting away ben

eath my skin as we speak. 

The ginger still doesn’t know I wasn’t nerv

ous about the crowd; I’d performed in front of hund

reds.

I was nervous about the trem

ors visit

ing my hands ons

tage like a fingertip’s grim reaper,

about the wild things tak

ing over and tap

ping the triangle with

out my consent, and ruin

ing the concert.

That didn’t happen;

we won the highest score of all of the bands that performed for our school.

The tremors left my hand that night,

with the ginger’s kiss and

the ginger’s reassuring, “You’ll be great,” and

the ginger’s hand on my hand, and

my hand remembering the constellations

of freckles on the ginger’s hand, and

my hand forgetting how to shake.

And my hand forgetting how to shake.