The Way I Hold

I don’t just hear you

I feel the things you haven’t said

settling like dust between your words.

I read the silence.

I meet the breath that catches in your throat

before your body remembers it’s safe.

There’s a place in me

that can hold the unspeakable.

The shame that claws.

The grief that leaks.

The longing that’s never had a name.

I was born for depth.

Not just the light,

but the trembling places where people forget

they are still lovable.

My intimacy is not soft for the sake of being soft.

It is forged.

It is fierce.

It is the stillness that doesn’t flinch

when the room gets thick with memory.

It is the quiet that says,

I will not abandon you here.

I don’t just hold space.

I inhabit it.

I tend to it.

I become it.

Because intimacy is not a technique

it’s the truth I’ve lived into with every scar.

And if I am good at anything,

it is this:

Knowing when to speak

and when to place my hand

on the back of someone’s heart,

and simply stay.