Your hands rise,
lifting me like the sun lifts the sea,
like roots pressing upward
through the weight of the earth.

Soft, yet forged in fire,
they carry the echoes of old wars,
eyewitnesses to the quiet battles
fought behind closed doors,
where love and labor
bleed into one another.

These hands have sewn the sky together,
stitched the open wound of hunger,
performed CPR on broken dreams,
forcing life breath to breath
into what the world tried to abandon.

They have held me when I was
spiraling out of control,
when the weight of existence
pressed into my chest
like an ocean refusing to let go.

I have seen them whisper over water,
stirring secrets into steam,
curiosity flickering in their fingertips
as they trace the edges of another day.
Unforgettable memories live in their creases—
the hush of a mother brushing fevered skin,
the press of fingers that say,
I am here. You will not fall.

Oh, hands of women, hands of warriors,
who write history into my skin,
who lift me, who hold me,
who do not ask for thanks—
only the courage to go on.