The Grip

You think hurt is loud --- plates, doors, flames.

Mine is quieter: your phone face-down,

the half-smile you give the doorway,

the chair across from me cooling like tea left out.

You call it honesty, but your truth has blunt corners.

You hand me a heavy box of it,

watch me climb the stairs,

and say, “See? It’s not that heavy,”

because it isn’t your back that’s aching.

I loved you like water -- plain, clean, necessary.

You wanted thunder, sparkle, sugar, storm.

I learned to be rain, then river, then sea,

and somehow you still said you were thirsty.

Your hands are all callus -- proof you’ve worked, you say.

They lift well, build well, break well--

but they do not hold without sanding.

I am not a board to be planed smooth.

I asked for gentleness; you heard need.

And, one day when you’ll hold something fragile and it will shatter --

you’ll blame the glass.

When all the while -- it was the grip.