Hands Not Held

 

In a room where greetings weave, 

a gesture extends—a common thread. 

Yet her hands, folded, quietly cleave 

to the fabric of a past that bled.

 

For where some see an offer, a sign, 

she sees the shadows of a darker play. 

Those hands, once weapons, cross a line 

that to others seems miles away.

 

Imagine the hands, not tools of peace, 

but of war, that touched without grace, 

that stripped the night of any lease 

on safety, on a sanctified space.

 

So, when hands reach out to bridge a gap, 

her heart retreats to a fortress old, 

built on tremors of a former trap, 

lined with stories, silent and cold.

 

Yet in her strength, a tale unfolds, 

not of the hands that caused her fear, 

but of the power that she now holds, 

to define touch, to hold it dear.

 

In every greeting she might refuse, 

there is a stand, a boundary set. 

Her hands are hers to use—or not— 

a choice born of terror, not of regret.