Hands

A gentle hand
traces the edge of her solitude,
and her body pulls away,
a reflex she can't suppress.
A border no hand can cross,
her wounds still too fresh,
too guarded.

Eyes are safer.
Eyes cannot hurt or violate.
But touch,
touch brings ghosts,
echoing in her bones.
The trembling child she once was,
still recoiling
from a past she can't forget.

He tries to hold her,
but she’s tangled in thorns,
a rose that learned long ago
that softness is dangerous,
that delicate petals are better kept hidden
behind jagged leaves shaped like loneliness.

So she stays
behind walls made of glass.
Her heart a flickering candle,
brave but lonely,
still waiting for the day
someone will find her,
break down her walls,
and not break her.