Maria Atlan

The Hug

The Hug And just when I thought I couldn’t get any angrier he hugged me. Struggling up first against as embrace I began to resist. And then I just released, released all the anger, all the insecurity, all that pent-up tension. Allowing the embrace to envelop me like a cool sea, when you jump in on a hot summer day. Every sense surrounded and penetrated with the feeling of relief. After so many fights with former lovers, spanning time, places, and reasons. He found the one way to calm the storm which is me. With calm confidence and love he walked right up to the tempest and hugged me. That night as I lay in bed next to the tamer of wild beasts wrapped in his arms, head resting in a comfortable nook all lovers know (the hinge with the arm joins the chest) I began to wonder… Wonder about the world in the state of things, and then a simple but provoking thought entered my mind. What if the world just needs a hug. Not a hello wonderful to see you hug, or a man I love and I’m gonna miss the hell out of you airport hug, but the kind of hug that gets inside you revolutionize how you feel. How do you see yourself. A hug that makes you realize there has to be a better way to say the things you need to say. A hug that makes a teacher want to go out and teach those who do not know any better. Bridging the gap between the ignorant and learned. A hug that makes a warrior of any kind, soldier or gorilla look at their rifle and think this seems like a bit fucking much, little overkill wouldn’t you say ( ironic attempt at a pun, totally intended) . A hug that makes the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and they all too often trodde upon hope that opportunity and a true environment to thrive isn’t an optimistic pipe dream but a tangible reality. A hug that grabs humanities bullshit anger by the arms and says enough there is a better way. So we need to hug you say, no shit. We need a hug in the worst fucking way, but the real question is how. How do we hug ourselves and begin to heal, how do we hug ourselves so completely, that much needed change can be real. ( Whoa ho ho I was a poet and didn’t even know it switching to rhyme at an appropriate time, sorry I digress )