Waiting Is Its Own Kind of Holding

The hand reaches out, and your hand pulls back before you even think. It happens in the bright light of the kitchen, while the coffee brews and the world expects you to be fine.

You wear the smile that says you are okay, but your body tells the truth: it flinches. You are ashamed of the reflex, the way your skin remembers what your mind is trying to forget.

But listen — the light does not demand that you stop shaking. It sees the mask you wear for the morning crowd, and it loves the one hiding underneath.

There is a touch that does not startle. There is a presence that waits until your muscles unclench, not because you earned the right to be still, but because you are already held.

The flinch is not a failure of faith. It is just an old wound speaking.

The hand that reaches for you now is not there to grab. It is there to wait.

And waiting is its own kind of holding.