"Hand-holding-*****."
is it still considered an alliteration if the words sound the same but actually start with different letters?
is it still an abomination if the others didn't mean a ******* thing?

if rubbing my thumbs across his only proved that I was capable of maintaining a relationship with someone for five years
- a sort of reward of comfort.

if the second time was because I was in liberty with
a stranger when it came to emotions and thoughts
but not when it came to exploring and touch
and only because I felt like it fit the mood
and only because I was missing your fingers and his felt close enough

if the third was purely because it was cold and lonely in the cemetery
and for once I craved romance rather than cringed from it
(even though gravitating towards graveyards is a cynical form of it)
but then I shied away from his lips
and we haven't really spoken much since.

does that count?
Maybe so, but I've never been a wishful thinker.
I think your fingers are the only ones that ever
truly touched me.
That I could ever really feel.
That ever made me feel.
I think I want your hands in mine,
but I also really like the feeling of
passing joints between foreign palms

I like heading to liberty
I like half-decade-long friendships
I like headstone letters

I like having a hand to hold.
Who can blame me for filling empty holes
when yours are no longer home?