Custom Made

On Softness and God's Perfect Creation

I don’t know if you notice when your hands brush upon my mines while we sit watching a movie on the couch. Your hands are warm and remind me of the steady rain in our shower. Without much effort, my consciousness is brought to that measly square inch of my body where you so affectionately touched but perhaps did so unconsciously.

The same is true when your fingertips sail up my inner thighs, my stomach, and my cheeks. In the dark, I know only of velvet on skin. My body’s your working table, but your hands were made for me. 

When I was a child, I bugged my mother for a yard of a pink satin like fabric. I didn’t care much for the color thinking it was for the posh girls who wore ribbons in their hair when I preferred to leave my hair in an unruly mess, but the fabric was what had me. It was melted butter in my hands. I carried it like a blanket to bed, holding the edge to my cheeks and succumbing to sleep. Soon, I carried that blanket into the bath. I let it envelop me. In the water, it became heavy and the warm pressure soothed me for hours. My body was tangled in a pink sea and the water conditioned the fabric softer to conform to me. 

My mother could not understand why I insisted on taking that pink fabric into the bath and in one fell swoop, she tossed it in the trash, disinterested in the work involved to wring it out and hang it to dry. Without the comfort of my soft blanket, I’d pester her for another yard days after. She’d sigh but surrender, and with a yardstick as her measuring tool, she unwrapped layers of the fabric from its bolt, laid it onto the store’s working table, held the edge taut, and let the scissors glide for a clean cut. Then again, she’d find that same pink mess left in the bath, soaked in soapy water.

I think a lot about that blanket that kept making its way back to me. I’m uncertain of the composition of its material. It reflected in the light like satin, yet stretched wide like nylon, but its surface was smooth and lustrous like velvet all the same. I believe God placed that material, tightly wound on a cardboard bolt, in the fabric store on Broadway Street just for me, given no one else ever asked for a cut to take home too. The roll sat in the same spot in the upper back shelves of the store collecting dust till I asked my mother to fetch it for me. Once again, she’d cut another yard from that same roll until there was no more, till either I forgotten to feel the world on my skin or I’ve grown too accustomed to its harshness.

Your fingers remind me of that beloved material. In bed, it’s not the hardness you carry or your soft planted kisses that sends me over the edge but your tracing of my spin, the hold of my hips, and the claim of my chin. 

I’d never felt hands like yours that run so free along my body and I believe God made them for me. I’ll continue reaching for them, brush your palm to my face as I’ve done with my blanket decades ago, and let your fingers linger on my lips. I’ll give way as your tools conform to my shape, my nook, and my space like water. I pray that your palms know no callous nor its muscles ever tire. Shall they continue to rub me down with lavender infused tallow and make space for plush kisses to seal in between. May I know no other, dry and rough. Please stay malleable and soft for me.

I believe God made you for me.