Everybody needs something.

An answer.
A favor.
A moment.
A call.
A little more strength
when I’ve given my all.

Can you fix this?
Do you know?
Can you help me understand?
And somehow, without asking,
my life became a pair of hands.

Hands that carry.
Hands that give.
Hands that catch what others drop.
Hands that keep on reaching
when the rest of me says stop.

So I answer.
I manage.
I figure it out somehow.
I’ve gotten so damn good at strong,
I don’t know how to put it down.

Then evening comes.

The noise grows still.
The door closes behind me.
And everything I’ve held all day
finally comes to find me.

The house is quiet.
The bed has space.
The silence settles in.
And the woman everybody needed
has nowhere left to send

the tired,
the lonely,
the pieces she concealed—
the parts that don’t need fixing,
only somewhere soft to yield.

Everybody knows
that I can carry.

Few ever ask
if I should.

And sometimes I don’t need
another reason to be strong.

I need somewhere
I don’t have to be.

Somewhere I can belong.

Because even hands
that hold the world
eventually need to fall.

And sometimes the one
who carries everyone

just wants someone
to carry her at all.