the intangible

Their hands remember what the mind edits— a quiet archive of weight and warmth, of tremors no one else could see. They held beginnings like fragile glass, cupping breath into being, palms curved around promises still soft enough to change. They held anger too— tight-fisted, knuckles pale— until it burned its way outward and left them empty, aching. There were hands they didn’t want to release: fingers threaded in borrowed time, skin learning the language of stay even as the world insisted on leaving. And still— they let go. Of letters that once felt like lifelines, of shoulders that turned unfamiliar, of the need to keep holding what could not hold them back. Now their hands are quieter, open in ways they never were before— not empty, but lighter. As if they’ve learned