Some Hands Stay

(but most don’t — and that’s what makes them holy)

I wasn’t going to write this.
Not today.
Not while lying in bed this late, with the sun hitting just enough skin to make me forget what time it is.
Air conditioner humming its soft little sermon.
“Eyes of Mermaide” playing low — The Black Hollies, that strange, aching track that always feels like the credits to something I haven’t finished living yet.

And yet here I am.
Typing anyway.
Letting this bleed out slow.

It started with laundry.
Just folding.
Nothing dramatic. Just a sock. A memory. A breath held too long.
And suddenly I was wondering when the last time was someone touched me without needing anything back.

Not sexually.
Not to fix me.
Not to mean something.

Just… stayed.

And maybe this isn’t worth posting.
Maybe it’s just a soft ache in the shape of a morning that ran a little late.
But I’ve learned something about mornings like this:

The thoughts that come when no one’s watching are usually the truest.
Not loud. Not clever. Just… honest.

So here it is:

I want you to know I’m still trying.
To be gentle.
To text slower.
To not rush the kiss, or the silence that follows.
To stop turning every feeling into a metaphor.

I want you to know that sometimes I don’t respond because I’m actually feeling it.
Not filtering it.
Just letting it move through me like this sun.
Like this song.
Like a memory I didn’t ask to come back, but did anyway — soft-footed and barefoot and familiar.

And I want you to know, if you’re still here…
if you’re still reading this far…

You’re not broken for feeling things harder than most.
You’re not strange for craving softness in a world that rewards steel.

You’re just tuned differently.
And that’s holy.
That’s rare.

That’s what stays.

// Scorpio Veil

No takeaway.
No next step.
Just this.

A moment that didn’t ask to be witnessed —
but was.

And maybe that’s enough.