The Hand That Is An Anchor

It is the middle of the day, and your shoulders are still up near your ears, bracing for a hit that isn't coming. You flinch when a hand lands on you, not because the touch is hard, but because your body remembers a violence that belongs to yesterday.

The light does not strike back; it only reaches out, steady and slow, waiting for your muscles to realize they are safe now. You were made from a drop of that very light, sent here not to endure blows but to illuminate the space around you.

If you keep what is within you buried under the armor, it will suffocate; but if you bring it forth, it will save you. The hand on your shoulder is not an attack; it is an anchor.