[ WP ] Make me cry .

When I first saw her, I thought, `` Her hands are too dirty.'' 
 
 I ca n't talk to people with dirty hands. They might touch me. They might reach out and grasp my arm, pat my shoulder, or worst of all, loop their fingers through mine. 
 
 When I first saw her, I thought, `` Her hands are too dirty. But I want her to touch me with them. I want to feel the warmth of her finger pads against my collarbone. I want the dirt under her fingernails to rise up in the marks she'll leave on my back. I want her hands through my hair. I want to shampoo three times for her. Or five if she touches me before she washes her hands. I want to feel the smoothness of her palms against my cheeks, hot with pain, but I want the tears I'll cry out of quiet desperation to mix with the dirt on her hands. I want her dirty hands more than I want to be clean.'' 
 
 When I walked up to her for the first time, her hand leaped out towards me, as if she feared nothing, not even my sweating, quaking body. When I flinched, she giggled. 
 
 `` I'm Sarah,'' I muttered as my hands kneaded bits of paper stuffed in my pockets and my eyes struggled not to stare at the smudge of lipstick on her pinky. 
 
 `` I'm Lily,'' she said through laughing teeth, her hand still stretching towards me, fearing no dirt, no hair, no crumb or fleck. 
 
 When I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, she left. I ran out the door, screaming out loud as my bare skin pushed the doorknob. She was gone and I was dirty. 
 
 When I got home, I washed my hands for a straight hour. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, scrubbing the disease off, imagining that with each freckle I rubbed and each knuckle I soaped, that I was ripping into my skull, wrapping my brain in suds and rinsing away every tic, every pattern, every number, every tiny speck of dirt that ever got in my way. 
 
 When my hands started bleeding, I started crying... because blood stains. 
 
 When I went to bed, with bandaged hands and clean sheets, I thought of Lily's fingers, of the brown sitting in the wrinkles, of the pink pop against her pinky, of the crumbs resting on her wrist. And I realized I wanted to be the dirt on her hands. I wanted to be dirty for her.
