Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
AJ Jun 8
I never meant to hold your hand
not like that, not for long.
But you held on far too tightly,
fingers locked like chains, clutching as if letting go would mean losing yourself.

And I tried to pull away, quietly, gently at first.
But the more I resisted, the tighter you grasped-until your love became a tourniquet.

Your grip cut through my flesh,
burst blood vessels deep beneath skin,
left bruises no one else could see,
pain I couldn't name out loud.

Still, I stayed.
Still, I let it happen.
Maybe I thought you'd loosen.
Maybe I feared the tearing more than the hold.

And then, suddenly, you let go.
Just like that.
No warning, no softness,
just absence where your hand used to be.

Now, my hands are swollen,
aching with the memory of pressure.
I can't hold anything else
not love, not comfort, not trust.

Everything slips through these trembling fingers that once held too much for too long.
And though you're gone,
your grip still lingers in the way I flinch when someone reaches for me.
AJ Jun 8
I think I knew it all along,
My hands were built for breaking, not for song
I tried to hold you soft and true,
But clumsy hearts don’t hold like steady glue

And I think I knew it from the start,
A storm can’t love the stillness of the chart
And so I loosed the knot I tied,
And watched you drift along the evening tide

You were the lighthouse far from reach,
A soul I touched but could not teach
A love I bore but never wore,
A knock I left outside your door

I kept my claws behind the veil,
Afraid they’d carve more grief than tale
You’ll never see the war I fought,
To stay away though near I sought

They’d call me cruel, they’d say I fled,
They’d ask what thoughts ran through my head
Do you recall my quiet hands?
And wonder why they missed demands?

Why they refused to dry your eyes?
Or failed to chase your fading skies?
Why they stood idle at the shore,
And never dared to pull you more?

The truth is this, I feared to bruise
To grip too hard, and still to lose
So I became the ghost you met,
A love you’ll mourn, but not regret
Jia En Oct 2024
Some of you
Don’t know how much you mean to
Me–
I just can’t see
A way
To say
“Just standing next to you makes my day”
Or perhaps “That made me feel so
Much better” because I know
It would just feel weird.
For how long has our society feared
Expressions
Of affection?
Too much obviously feels wrong
But when you’ve been here for so long,
I don’t know how to not overdo
My gratitude towards you.
contrary to the poem i just posted
will Oct 2020
those slender fingers ache
with frost touched tips
when hands join not
and severance of limb
not of your own body
comes away like snow
falling from the sky
so naturally but so coldly
lua Sep 2019
there was a moment in time
when death sat beside me on a park bench
and he had rested his hand on the gap between us

i,

too,

rested my hand there
and brushed my fingers against his

and for a chaste moment
i savoured the warmth of his skin
and intertwined my hand with his

but he stood up

and left

and maybe he knew,

it was for the better.
it was the right option
beth haze Oct 2018
We took quiet steps down a lonely street
I had never stepped foot in before.
The air felt tense since it was
more than clear that you didn't feel
like talking, not anymore.
You stopped suddenly and backed me
against a wall.
We made out slowly whilst I felt
an old lady watching us from her
front steps, maybe I was just imagining her
since it was time for me to go,
I had to meet up with my friends.
Two steps forward and you stopped again
looking at me with a shy smile and
intertwined our hands.
My palms were sweaty and my rings
poked at your skin but you insisted that
you didn't care.
It was also the last time
we held hands.
- hand holding.
Inspired by a prompt from Madisen Kuhn's Instagram stories. "Write a poem about the first time you held someone's hand".
Secret Whispers Sep 2018
You were never really interested in the real me,
Perhaps you were enamored with the idea of who I could be.

“Could she be a dancer, a painter, or a combination of both?
Perhaps I can still get to her through her season of growth.
To prove it to her, I’ll swear myself under oath.”
After months of not paying you any mind, I decided to give you a try.

A decision I would later regret.
But a memory I can never forget.
FrankieM Jan 2018
Although I’m sure my presence is starting to become more than a little vexatious, I still hold your hand as often as I possibly can. Partially because I find how rough your hands are compared to the rest of your body to be very pleasing, but mostly because I feel obligated.
Don’t take it the wrong way, I don’t feel obligated in the sense that I’m being forced. I just know that we humans come into and leave this world alone, and I know all that you’ve seen.
So I’ll hold your hand while we lay in bed at night, cross the road, and walk through the grocery store, readjusting my grip as our fingers start slipping.
And when I notice you start slipping and losing your grip on this world and all it has too offer, I’ll readjust whatever it is that need readjusting. I’ll hold on even tighter so you don’t have to.
Just don’t give up. I know it’s hard, and I know you know that we humans come into and leave this world alone. But when I hold your hand, I have the entire world at my fingertips.

I’ll readjust as needed.
I never want you to feel alone like I do.
Alaska Oct 2016
hand holding
is such a
beautiful thing,
two different
hands intertwined
to make one.
Next page