Paper Clip Beauty

Every morning, my hands slip into their accouterments. Five bands of silver, one of gold: six rings that circle, surround, enclose my thin fingers. Each has immeasurable significance, possessing a story as beautiful and individual as the printed fingertips they slide past each morning. Around my left hand slide five bracelets, settling in a congregation just below the base of the palm, at the nape of my wrist. These, too, carry histories all their own. The Livestrong on my right hand, its bright yellow rubber a stark contrast to my pale skin, first attached itself in eighth grade and has remained a constant presence ever since.

To others, the jewelry I wear is simply that: pieces of metal hardware, rings and bracelets meant purely for decoration. Yet these ornaments are appendages, extensions of my fingers. They have intertwined with the hands of another, felt the warmth and silent love emanating between a gentle squeeze. They have experienced the rough and tumble of Willson Osborne's "Rhapsody," jerked up and down allowing notes to pass through hollowed wood and burst into the colored tones of a contemporary masterpiece. They have gripped thousands of pencils, hundreds of pens, contributed to the words that align and realign themselves into stanzas, into poetic expansions of myself. My bracelets have hugged and have danced. My rings have tickled and wiped away tears. Every night, these pieces part ways with my hands, temporarily separating their existence from my body, until the next day, when I lengthen and extend myself through their metal forms once more.