𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑆𝑜𝑓𝑡 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔

Who taught you  

that softness  

was a debt?  

That every time  

you opened  

your hands  

the world  

sent an invoice—  

*payment due  

in blood,  

in ruin,  

in the currency  

of your own  

breaking*.  

So you learned  

to calcify.  

To turn  

your heart  

into a fist  

before anyone  

could hold it  

wrong.  

But at night  

the fist  

aches.  

It remembers  

being a palm.  

It remembers  

the shape  

of tenderness  

like a language  

you were fluent in  

before the war.  

And gods,  

it hurts  

to unclench.  

It hurts  

to admit  

you still want  

to be touched  

without flinching.  

But here—  

here is my hand,  

trembling,  

empty,  

anyway.  

-𝕃ℝ 🖤