How can these hands, so innocent and weak, wrestle with such tragedy? Can they wring justice from shackles or squeeze mercy from hardened hearts? They cannot; they are doomed to the wounds of color: purples and blacks and blues, bruises soothed only by the tears of weary eyes. These hands would have stretched so far. They would have sailed around the world if not tethered to these arms, appendages that never seemed so short before.

What does it mean, to lie facedown and flail in vain hope? To press against the unyielding earth as if my embrace could bring comfort, some small measure of comfort, to a firmament so withdrawn in sorrow? The pleas seep from the ground: a dew of blood demanding vengeance...

Truth is a horror tale. It is seen through the hollow eyes of hungry children, spoken in grisly detail every time my wallet yawns. It is a story that sighs and groans with every turn of this weary world that rolls, as it always has, in quiet death.

Can a cross heal? Can thorns mend? I am only a little, lonely boy.

I am only a little, lonely boy.

These small hands. “Here, Jesus!” They cannot offer much: a few loaves, a few fish, already devoured by a sea of hungry eyes. But they are all I have.

All I need give.