The thing about fingerprints is not that, right now, there are seven billion different unique fingerprints on seven billion different people.
It is not that in all of human history no one finger print has been repeated, making, if my math is right, which it's not, twenty trillion individual fingerprints.
Nor is it even that none of the quadrillions of people that will come after me will have my exact finger print.
No, the thing about fingerprints is that they are utterly useless
Which is to say they serve no practical purpose in the survival of the **** Sapien.
That's a lot of effort to put into something that is pointless

2.
If we were created in God's image, then God was a man and
I imagine he took Sunday off and came back to work on Monday like the rest of us.
So maybe fingerprints haven't been forever.
Like with snowflakes maybe God's just doing some interior decorating lately.

Or maybe Saint Peter was kicking it with God in the break room at heaven and was like, "Dude...we need a new system, too many people are dying and I can't keep looking up everyone's deeds by hand; it's taking too long."
And in a moment of genius He was all, "I got this bro" and invented the fingerprint
Then went down to Best Buy and got one of those scanner things for the pearly gates and now when you die you just scan your finger and it auto-populates your deeds and if you get in it's all awmmmm and the gates open,
And if you don't get in it's all whup whum and you fall through a hole in a cloud in the sky and land in a fiery pit of hell.

(My parents stopped making me go to church in 2nd grade so my visions of heaven and hell are colored in crayon.)

3.
I wonder if the image of God sitting at a desk with a protractor, compass, drafting pencils, and tracing paper designing each individual finger print all day long comforts you?

4.
Maybe we're some Alien sociology major's thesis and our fingerprints are our unique identifiers for tracking and data collection purposes

5.
When I started this poem I thought maybe fingerprints are keys.
As in someone out there has the fingerprint that unlocks me.
But I've loved more than once
Hurt more than twice
And had a lot more *** than that
So unless this key unlocks something I've never heard of my lock's broken and I need to know who to call about that.
But I don't like to think of myself as broken anymore.

6.
Maybe when God's little helpers are making us they slice off a sheet of skin from the butcher roll, spread it out flat sticky side up on the stainless steel slab.
Grab a set of bones off the shelf lay them down and like canvas around a frame stretch the skin tight around our skeleton.
Starting from toes, to the knee, over the shoulder, around those pesky elbows
Until they tie us off at the finger tips with twine, cut the excess with sheep sheers, let it heal.
Fingerprints.
Our our little "Heche en el cielo"

7.
When I fall in love for the last time, I will dip my finger in red paint.
I will roll my finger across the bare chest of my love and she will wear it there
Like a tattoo no one else could give her.

8.
Maybe there is no point to fingerprints
Like arpeggios before a concerto
Maybe God was just warming up

9.
Maybe fingerprints are the point to everything

10.
Maybe an omnipresent God is at every birth
In every bedroom, hospital, and taxi cab
In every town, in every city, in every country in the world.

Maybe every time a baby is born
God, takes the time to name it
Then writes it down
In a language only He understands

I trace the memories kept behind like fingerprints.
The love we had is now crushed and swept away by a wave of  
our indolence and insanity.
I go back to the time of sadness,
Because it was the sadness of her eyes the made me
happy
happy
happy
and somewhat sane…

All I have left are the mental photographs of what happened
and of wanting what could have been. I leave now with all the
things that I traced—things that can never be erased
like fingerprints that never  
ever had changed.
I sit here alone in this disease-ridden couch, with my
disease-ridden hope. And I will memorize your eyes,
blinking to the rhythm of you heartbeat, dancing in a starlit daydream—as  
I am wishing of a memory where you gave me  
everything you had
and where I offered you the pieces that were left
of me.

I kept all memories of you in a heart-shaped box,
where it is slowly crumbling as time goes by.
I kept all your secrets,
your playbook,
your cards,
your broken cassettes and cigarettes
our now and always,
your sad eyes and the happiness you had
and which made me smile again.

So maybe fingerprints and memories share a common thing. They say  
that “good things happen to those who wait”, I’d say keep on waiting,
*******, I have been waiting, and still all I’ve traced is  
the measurements of my  
indolence and insanity. So yeah, keep on waiting.

WEARING EACH OTHER'S FINGERPRINTS

midnight
tips the candle
slowly slowly

until the pain is bearable
our fingers scream
wax stealing our fingerprints

we laugh in the dark
peel off each other's fingerprints
they lie there

alien animals
cooling on a saucer
sleep finds us

wearing each other's fingerprints
( you me
I you )

years later
not even Death
can steal you from me

September 30th 2015 5 am

Unwind, unwind, unwind, unwind unwind, rewind, look at your hands. Do you even recognize your own fingerprints; you never did.
But you recognize theirs, every uneven swirl and pattern.
Now burn them off.
Can you recognize their fingerprints on the body that was found dead behind a 7-Eleven dumpster?
Can you even recognize that the body is yours?
This is what you asked for. This is what you asked for. This is what you asked for.
Hands, fingers, hands, fingers, nails, knives.
You made this mistake.
They found your fingerprints on the shovel that dug the grave just for you.
Your mistake, don't give second chances.
Your mistake, no fingerprint will ever the same.

I've thought about a lot this week
I'll write it down before I sleep
The words that I'm too shy to speak
While you and I are lying face to face.
I'm too shy to unhinge my jaw
And let the syllables freely fall
I'll lie awake and write it all
So maybe you can see.
People leave fingerprints on our soul
After the curtain's closed and they've played their role
But they also leave us with a gaping hole
That fingerprints won't fill.
But you were the one to make all the difference
And understand the purple scars on my wrists
Some people wrap our souls in their fists
And refuse to ever let it go.

My fingerprints tell a story
on occasion I'll glance down at them
Careful yet unobtrusive rings of life
Much like the tree that grew in the yard
of my childhood home.

Tonight these circles within circles
trace the outline of your body.
Your spine.
Your hip bones.
Your ribs.
Every muscle tense and then relaxes
under the strength of my extremities

I'm horrible at saying goodbye
I'd much rather lie here and
outline your body for you.
My fingers the chalk outline at a crime scene

Fugitives are always careful about fingerprints.
They're easily picked up by white dust
and foreign gloved hands

But this time, I'll leave my ringed prints behind
I want them to know I knew you.

My eyelids seem
to be the strongest part of me.
When the rest of my body
falls
into the ocean
of blankets they
float open upon the white water
atop
the waves of sleep.
This is when you come back.
In this mattress I am a piece
of clay and I can still feel the deep indentations of where your fingers
wrapped themselves like Ivy around my hips.
Hips, that stuck out like white flags of surrender and
fell to the ground in a straight line.
I can still hear
you.
I am a broken record,
and your whispers are the only track that plays at this hour.
“You are fat”
“Look at how flat you are Emma, no boy will ever look at you.”
“You are ugly.”
These are the nights when I can
feel the spiderwebs your words wrapped around my ribs and
listen to the way my heart beats constricted
in its cage, your hand still clenched around it.
Can’t you see me bleeding?
Safety lies
beneath my eyelids but you pull them open
I can feel
your icy touch behind my eyes as I stare
coldly at the ceiling.
you demand to be heard.
Did you mean to put your words
in my pocket when you reached in to steal the sleep that was nestled there like crumpled dollar bills?
Do you realize that you stayed with me?
Can you take your stolen midnight hours back and place them on your pillowcase?
Will your eyelids close?
Or can you still hear my cries of protest as your soundtrack plays into the night?
I don't understand?
Did you think it wouldn't hurt me?
Or did you want to live forever,so you put your
fingerprints where you knew they wouldn't fade.

It is said that those
who have emotionally touched you
leave an everlasting imprint
on your beating heart
and shining soul
An impression of sorts
like one of a fingerprint,
the swirling patterns of their delicate fingertips
pressed against our skin
leaving a permanent mark
for everyone to see
a tattoo of beauty
or sometimes,
a scar of spiteful hatred
and sham
The imprints left on our skin
eventually travel to our hearts
recreating our character
and traveling to our souls,
shaping us anew
taking and reshaping our very beings
to become a kind angel
or a vengeful demon
refining our once innocent minds
to become something else
Fingerprints pressed to our eyes,
lips,
hands
and feet
either leaving us with good impressions
or wicked intentions
It is not for us to decide
whether those who touch us
leave fingerprints of swirling beauties
or a labyrinth of anguish
but we can decide
what we do with these unique tattoos
and what we create using
their magnificent power.

Your fingerprints are on my heart.

Fingerprints that teach me about caring.

Fingerprints that teach me about love.

Fingerprints that teach me about courage.

Fingerprints that teach me about hope.

Fingerprints that bring me closer to my loved ones.

Fingerprints that bring me closer to myself.

In the time I cared for you my whole life changed —

never to be the same again

All this from tiny fingerprints that touch my heart.

You will live in my heart forever – never to be forgotten.

I will always love you.

You are my child.

your fingerprints are on my heart and i haven't quite been able to get rid of them at all
it's been six months and i owe my current boyfriend an apology because ****, i don't love him
i never asked for these lingering prints and i've tried so hard to get rid of them but tears did not wash them away, and loneliness did not erase them. now im learning that a heart in new hands will not cover your marks either and to my boyfriend, i'm so incredibly sorry, but you're not him

look at your fingers.
extend & wiggle them.
look closer.
fingerprints.
not another person on earth
has the same ones as you.
you are alive.

m.f.

Fingerprints are like relationships
they leave a trace.
Your fingerprints are all over me
The whorls of your prints are seared into my skin
Into my soul.
I submit each time you touch me
set aflame by your caress.
Spiral patterns of you criss cross my body,
Your body.
Sparks of need jump from your fingertips
arcing into me, possessing, caressing,
they leave me breathless and defenceless
to the onslaught that will leave me inevitably,
wrecked upon our bed, like a trapped ship on the shore.

They say we leave fingerprints on the lives we touch.
I have been scrubbing at my skin for the past
eight months
trying to erase yours,
but now matter how hard I scrub,
I can still feel you as if
you were still here.

If today is the last time I see you,
I hope I left fingerprints
on your heart.

Snowflakes and fingerprints
We are all 'unique.'
But if we account into this,
the law of probablilty
and an infinite amount of time.
Will there ever be two identical snowflakes?
Will my DNA ever be replicated,
or am I already a copy of someone else's view
And even in
one billion years
will there
ever
be
another you?

The ease
Of untouchable flow
Where every input
Equates to an equal output
A mans love
For technology
Pure logic
Fits like a glove
To hide
Fingerprints

What would the world look like
if thoughts poured
through fingertips,
imprinting secrets on
window panes
dinner tables
library books
her arms
your back

I wonder.

You have to be careful of what you touch
Everything you ever lay your hands on
Will forever remember the way you held it
Until it fades away into the dust that it came from
The pen will remember how you held it between your fingers
How much pressure you put on it when you wrote her a love letter
Her doorbell will always remember the way your hand shook
The day you took her out for the first time
The passenger side door handle will remember
How your hand was slick with sweat when you tried to open it for her
The fork and knife you used to cut your steak that night
Will remember how you fumbled with them because you were so nervous
The steering wheel will remember how tightly you held it
As you drove her back to her house after dinner
They will always remember every detail of your touch
So think twice before you reach out to her and take her hand
Because when you touch her your fingerprints aren’t only left on the surface
They will sink below the surface of her skin and seep into her blood stream
They will course through her entire body
And just like the pen she will never forget the way you touched her
*~W.C.

I write, edit, then post.
Delete, edit, then post.
My fingerprints are toast.
Spectral as a ghost.
I used to leave them
On things of ease,
But now they're stuck,
On lettered keys.

I
There is a 3% chance I'll find you here. But if in each pair of eyes I dip, I find 1/8 of you; I'll be there soon.

II
I didn't crawl here; I took a plane. I spent six hours tracing the Atlantic from my window and you rose from the sea, dry and unsalted, twice each nautical mile. I would say it was my imagination, or the California wine, but I wear glasses now and never lie about what I see. It was you. And you and you and you.


III
Stealing is easier here. Maybe it's the crowds or the way the men smile at me like I'm harmless, but my hands move without question. They don't fumble or miss pockets, my heartbeat doesn't even protest. In prayer beads, silkworm cocoons, oils and sea rings, I am in debt to a city who doesn't know it.


IV
I have no ethnicity. Deep in bone coils the apathy and flight of someone's non-heritage. But I am forgiven; in a world of paranoia, brown eyes are always trusted and the way my hair falls reminds them that I'm on their side. Even my name curls within itself, folded flat and dead before it's over. It's better this way; no allegiance, no responsibility.

V
From a curb in district nine, I see your star. It's hanging where you said it would be but I can't see god in it the way you promised.

VI
On the other side of the world you told me about a quad of green. You waxed flowers of every color, the sky I've only ever painted and the people, beautiful and dark, who will save me. I found it. In broken French and broken sandals I found it and the sun was setting and you had just left. So now we both know you won't be the one to save me.

VII
With one foot in the slanting gutter I walk until the city circles and I'm back where I started. In a daydream I found you. I smiled and quoted your book, the part that said 'When we heard the guidance, we believed in it' and you looked at me in a way that scared me. A way that translated your face into thousands of alphabets, ancient and invented. And I knew none of them. Suddenly I'm illiterate to you. Suddenly I'm gone.

VIII
I'm with a man who's made of smoke and each strawberry ring that escapes my lips is dedicated to someone that I’ve laughed with.

IX
With the intensity of archives on fire, I withdraw. You are still a body; a few hundred bones calcified and aging, a mind of words streaming like spider webs, blood you never shed, and  muscles that cross in blinding precision, but you are not who you used to be. You bound to me in a way that's irreversible and now we're both stitching. Awkward and broken we pull at flesh to remove each other. We have scars now, like stickers ripped from wallpaper. The outline of a palm stains my shoulder, a thumb the size of yours in the crook of my elbow. Small, white fingerprints tattoo your neck.


X
I might be free. Over cobble stones with broken sandals I don't trip until I realize that a city where I loved is now part of me. I can get as far away from her as the modern map allows but the red and gold bangles that crowd my wrists are not to be taken off. They're a part of me too. Like blood spilled on a cobble stone, you will walk over us every day of your life.

Emails & web searches,
filtered &
documented,
footprints leading right
to your fingerprints.

The night I met you, you put your hand to my chest.
I sunk to the bottom of this hole,
And alone in the dark, I pulled myself apart,
Tearing skin from skin and prying out the bones.
When I reached the heart I thought was long gone,
I found a familiar set of fingerprints.
Like a crime scene I didn't know existed,
I keep finding traces of you I never expect.
I couldn’t believe I let myself fall so far,
I didn’t realize it til we’d collided so hard
I keep finding debris, so many of your little pieces and parts
Embedded deep inside me like a pair of crashed cars
Even after we’ve separated and cleaned up the wreckage
I still find pieces of you in the caverns of my heart
And I’ve never been so grateful for falling apart
Because sometimes you get put back together better than you were at the start.

i don’t know why i’m here

it all happened so fast, i was in a daze

or perhaps a trance

my legs just kept propelling me in this direction despite

my common sense

though i’m not sure if i even have that

left

i’m sorry i stained your pillow case with mascara

i’m sorry i noticed the bottle of zopiclone sitting on your bedside

i’m sorry i wrecked your perfectly made bed

i’m sorry i’m so needy and stubborn

my legs led me here, i had no choice

i didn’t want this, i really didn’t

it’s just that sometimes i can feel my heart beating

in your chest, which would explain this unrelenting ache because

my body just can’t seem to part with it.

i’m sorry i came here expecting something from you

but i will re-make your  bed,

remove the mascara from your pillow,

and set the alarm when i leave,

leaving no trace of my self

behind, aside

from the invisible fingerprints on your piano keys.

Her hands held on to
His fingerprints on
The other side of the glass
Window that divided them

Left her longing for
A moment to grasp
And cherish him and her
And what they never were

And while she watched
His back turn to her
She conquered the familiar
Sense of holding back

And with her fingers she wrote
The words in the dust he left
On the window. She whispered
“Look back and see” I love you

the sweet sound of your voice in the breeze
the musky scent of your cologne
the wrinkles in your cheeks when you smile
these memories engraved in my memory, my conscious brain
and so much more realistic than any vivid dream

your warmth and comfort under a dark sky  
your lips, oh hell, the beginning of a sweet, kind addiction
your hand held in mine, a physical connection separate from emotion
these comforts, my dreams, fulfilled by one sole human
and so wonderfully admirable

the butterflies captured inside of my stomach
the giggles after moments of affection and kind fighting
the fingertips tracing little crevasses of exposed skin
its this that left its mark, like a bruise
your fingerprints left each memory of us captive, hostage

in my sweet memories, these moments last
but in reality, they live more vividly

I was going to write you something
that embodied our love, some
infinitesimal prose about
your name click-clacking off of
my tongue or your eyes
when you're smiling.

I was going to answer all of
the questions that are silently ticking
inside your mind and scrawl
perfect prepositions across the page
so that your hands might
falter as they traced the corners.

I wanted to tell you about
the tug of your presence or
the way that your fingerprints
feel against mine,

but I'm writing this instead,
listing off the beauty that I feel
seeping into my skin and
it doesn't really make sense
but that's just the way it falls
onto the paper, bit by bit.
sad things, serenade me.

I'm only romanticizing
the madness of it all.
I never asked to be
a ******* poet.

I inked your name
all over my body
until every inch of me
had traces of you,
as you claimed every new part of me—
my attention, my mind,
and finally my heart—
until you had me in my entirety
and every word I said
echoed with the sound of you.
Every new promise I tattooed
onto my skin
with invisible ink
so it could only be seen
to you
who knew every detail of me
like you knew your own
ambitions,
like you knew your own reflection.
And the ghost of your hands remained
everywhere that I
had welcomed them.
And soon those ghosts
found a way
to sink deeper than the surface
as all the promises and fingerprints
and your name,
over and over,
were sent into my bloodstream
and overtook every part
of who I had been.
Until finally I couldn't even
recognize myself
buried under the things
you had taken
and rearranged forever
as I was writing
the same five letters
behind every word my hand formed.
And as more of me was lost
to the cells of you
hidden throughout my veins,
you took more steps
further away
until the only evidence
you had even been here
was your name,
over and over,
inked into my heartbeats
and whispering repeatedly
from every single thing
I'd written of love.

Narcolepsy* hard and heavy watch me fall asleep
            Lulled to bed in a cunning thread of the tangled web we weave
    I dream in pristine colors, windows of my mind anew
No fingerprints or ***** looks or evidence of you

         I find comfort in forever wherever it may be
        I may have left my home but it will always stay with me
                 The smell of all the smoke with the sound of all the rain
   On constant playback every second deep within my brain

        I found that time is all that matters and everything else faded
        I spent years and years learning how to forget everything I hated
    I've only gotten older and have nothing left to show
              Except a ringing alarm clock and blood on my pillow

     Narcolepsy** hard and heavy watch me as I sleep
     Another pill, another high, another date to keep
      If I shall die before I wake, I hope that I'm with you
    Then it won't matter where I go, cause you will see me through

The spirals swirl
not one the same
for every finger
and every name.

Identity
in skin and lines
on appendages
that reach and pine
to belong
in a crowded world
where hands break
and fingers curl.

Deliver me
from this rusted space.
Take my soul,
leave not a trace.

Purgatory?
Heaven? Hell?
They're all the same.
Can't you tell?

The world will turn
even when we're gone.
The moon will rise
just as the sun.

Our fingerprints
will disappear.
Flesh and blood
crimson to clear,
just as this
the world will fade
from dust to dust,
the one fair trade.

Take not then
this life for death
take instead
my gentle breath.

Teach me then
to breath deep and long
to fill my lungs
and make them strong,
to brush my fingers
on another's tips
and learn to love
by touching lips;

for when I die
and lifeless lay
upon the ground,
no words to say,
at least then
I'll have lived a life.
I'd have learned to love
through pain and strife.

A warm hand pressed up against cool glass
Making a hot handprint appear.
The maker of the print lifted their hand
To study the unique swirls and whirls they left.
There is no pattern to the lines that created the handprint.
No precise angle of arches,
Nor perfect precision of patterns.
The transparent window displayed the differences,
Unique to only one person.
Sculpted at birth and remodeled over the years.
Recoding every hardship experienced by the hands.
Each line, arch and swirl different from one another,
All part of a life.
Each hand telling a different story,  
Each story created by a different hand.

If each one is unique,
      Then why
      Are they catagorized?
      Unique.
      Just like everyone else.

I'm looking deep into her eyes

Looking into her eyes...
is like opening a door that leads...
to another door

Wait..really?  OK...I open the door.

This door leads to a long, winding path,
like the winding path of your love.  
The path leads to a third door

O...K. I open the door.

This door leads to a spiral staircase
descending down, down, down,  deep
into her soul.
At the bottom of the staircase is--

A door?

A door.

I open the door

The door is locked.  The key might be under the mat

Seriously?  I check under the mat

Nope, not there.  Maybe try under the small rock next to the door

Oh for the love of...I check the rock

There is a key

Wonderful...I unlock and open the door

Inside this door is a large atrium
the glass ceiling giving way to a
beautiful summer night, the stars
twinkling in the distance.  At the
far end of the Atrium, there is a curtain

Sigh I pull aside the curtain

There is a door

Come on!  I open the ruddy door.

You find yourself in a long hallway,
with fine art hanging along the walls.
Crimson carpet lines the floor.
At the end of the hall is a door  locked
with a combination biometric
fingerprint scanner/retinal scanner

What.

You have 10 seconds to unlock the door
before the hunter-bots de-atomize you

What!?  Ok! I try my fingerprints and eye!

The door unlocks and the hunter-bots stand down.
In the next room are three vials.  Two of them contain
terrible neuro-toxins that will lead to an excruciatingly
painful death.  The third will allow you to continue on
to the next room.  You have 30 seconds to choose before
you are terminated

What the hell is this!?

This is the path to true love hidden deep in her eyes

No, this is insanity!

15 seconds

OK!  Geez!  Umm..Vial Number 2!

You're totally dead

Oh god!

Just kidding.  None of them had poison...was just messing with you

THAT'S IT!  I'M DONE WITH THIS

Really?  There's only one more door.  I swear

...Fine.  What ridiculous thing do I need to do to open it.

It's already open.  You find yourself in a circular room
with a pedestal in the center.  On the pedestal is a hand
written note.  On that note is the key to everlasting happiness

I pick up the note

You smell sweet hints of your beloved's perfume and
notice the care that each word of the note was written.

What does the note say?

My love:

Next Tuesday Only --  Buy One-Get One Free at J.J's Pizza.  Cannot be combined with any other offers/coupons.  Must present coupon upon purchase.  Expires 1/14/14

...An expired coupon for Pizza?

Such a wonderful expression of love!

How do I get out of here...

You see a door
.

All across your body,
lines written in rainbow thread.

A heart is only
so much weight, wait...why?

Would they dust your body
for the remnants?

What they have found,
is it hesitant?

Engorged like a hibiscus pistil,
covered in pollen
dripping with dew.

This is no request, but an order:
Extend your tongue
til it pulls with a bit of pain from behind your lower teeth,
open up,
and
prepare
to
swallow.