When Hands Forget How to Hold

 There was a time

when your hand fit so quietly in mine

it felt like breath—

not taken,

but returned.

Our fingers once knew

the language of clasp and comfort—

an unspoken vow

sealed skin to skin,

knuckles to memory.

But even hands grow weary.

Not suddenly—

but by degrees.

A hesitation at the knuckle,

a pause before reaching,

a letting go

that begins long before

the actual release.

Do you remember

how we first learned to touch?

The tentative grazing

of fingertips on a coffee mug,

shoulders brushing

as we passed each other

in narrow hallways of time.

Even then,

touch held weight—

not of pressure,

but of presence.

And when we held,

we held everything.

Hope.

Grief.

The shadowed softness

of unspoken fears.

But something shifted—

not in the hands,

but in the will.

A drifting of trust

like pollen on still water,

until even the most familiar touch

felt foreign.

Now, these hands

carry the echo

of what they once knew.

They reach without reaching.

They hover,

unsure

if warmth will be returned

or vanish like mist

against the cheek of morning.

It is a quiet grief—

not loud enough for mourning,

yet deep enough

to hollow out a gesture.

When hands forget how to hold,

hearts falter.

Not from loss,

but from the silence

that spreads

where connection once lived.

And yet—

even in forgetting,

there is memory.

A subtle twitch in the palm,

a reflex in the wrist,

a dream where two hands

still find each other

in the dark.

So I wait.

Not for your hand,

but for the moment

when my own

will remember

how it once

held light

and called it love.