You held my hand.
While Andy Dufresne crawled through a river of **** and came out clean on the other side, you willed your fingers to find mine.
I wanted to tease you, “don’t play palm reader, i don’t think there’s a rosetta stone for untangling this mess”,
But I didn’t.
Instead, I let your thumb make maps of me, charting my mountains and valleys and taking inventory of the cracks you could gently crawl your way into.
I wanted to say, “it’s dark down there, don’t let yourself get lost because I’m not sure that you’ll find your way back out again, and trust me, it’s no place to make a home”,
But I didn’t.
Instead, I let your fingers ****, where does it ache? Where are the fault lines that just won’t give? Where are there fires waiting to ignite?
I wanted to explain, “the fires inside of me aren’t something to roast marshmallows around. These fires destroy towns, burn whole cities right to the ground”
But I didn’t.
Instead, I watched your fingertips search for mine like kindling, wondered if you touched the stove one too many times as a child, wondered if maybe you weren’t afraid of getting burned.
I wanted to be honest, “I don’t know how to write love anymore, my hands don’t know **** about soft, only know how to etch in my notepad with splintered bone and blood”,
But I didn’t.
Instead, I let myself melt into the laughter that followed a joke you so cunningly told. And suddenly, poetry felt more softened butter and less barbed wire.
I wanted to warn you, “they shake sometimes. These hands are more bull than butterfly most days, tend to do more breaking than building”,
But I didn’t.
Instead, I steadied myself in your breathing. Let your heartbeat echo in my ear and decided that I would never, could never, make a china shop of your chest.
I wanted to give you one more word of caution, “I’ve waded in my fair share of ****** rivers, thought about drowning myself in them a time or two to put out the flames, I understand if this is too much, if you’re already taking on enough water of your own”,
But I didn’t.
Instead, I wanted to tell you what I was thinking, that maybe, you’d trudged the same waters, wondering if somehow we’d both come out the other side clean. calloused and cracked, but clean.
But I didn’t.
I wanted to ask, “can you be patient? no one’s ever treated my fists like teacups, I don’t know gentle. But I can learn. You can teach me.”
Instead, I didn’t say much. We watched Andy Dufresne make a free man of himself, tasted salt on our tongues from the tears or the ocean, some relief from the dry mouth the *** so lovingly gave to us, felt the sun on our faces and hoped the Pacific was bluer than either of us could have ever dreamed.
And you held my hand.
And somewhere along the way, I found myself holding yours, too.
a.m.
