My Hands Still Remember More

I yearn to return home, and it troubles me how quickly one small misstep can cast doubt over everything I have spent years carefully building could erase the steadiness of my entire life,
I yearn to return home, I know what happens to me when panic grabs the room first, even my practiced hands feel foreign and even my steady thoughts sound like strangers speaking,
I yearn to return home, damage of a moment loves to exaggerate itself and I keep believing it, paying for it with that heavy shame that makes even simple breathing feel borrowed,
I want to return home, can I tell them that I’m flooded right now and not broken,
I yearn to return home, I endure the heat, the noise, and the turmoil within me until I can sense that the trembling is not an all-encompassing force, but rather a fear that has resurfaced.

I want to hold still, there are moments when I touch the day too fast and then I stand there wounded by my own haste as if the mistake means I was already foolish from the start,
I want to hold still, I want my effort to protect me from error, I want devotion to guarantee clean outcomes, I want care to spare me from ugly surprises,
I want to hold still, but life keeps refusing that bargain turning one bent result into a courtroom where I am both accused and exhausted before I have even have the chance to learn,
I want to hold still, am I reacting to what happened or to what I am afraid it says about me,
I want to hold still, I remind my body that the ruined stroke is only a burial of my gift, not the end of my discipline, not the final proof of my worst…

I still want to stay near, I know the difficult swing between the joy of beginning and the quick fear that I have already ruined it, but hope makes every small stumble feel larger than it is,
I still want to stay near, when I am deep in the work and something goes sideways I do not just grieve the error, I grieve in tenderness I had finally allowed myself to feel I was making something honest,
I still want to stay near, because what breaks in those seconds is not only momentum but the private relief that maybe I was safe in the process,
I still want to stay near, do I notice how fast I turn one interruption into total abandonment,
I still want to stay close, even though a louder part of me wants to slam the door on the entire attempt, I keep one hand on the table and refuse to leave myself alone there…

As I loosen slowly, there is a difference between losing my center and losing my capacity, I confuse them so completely that I start speaking to myself like both are gone for good,
As I loosen slowly, what hurts is not the mistake but that awful feeling that I was just beginning to move freely and then I was thrown back into my old cramped way of bracing,
As I loosen slowly, still the deeper truth waits underneath the embarrassing patience, what I knew before the rupture did not vanish just because my nerves made a scene around it,
As I loosen slowly, can I let my inner weather settle before I judge what remains,
As I loosen slowly, when I stop worshipping the turbulence I notice my hands still know the work, and that quiet knowing is stronger than my fear…

Watchwords
one shaking hour has authority,
my practiced hands feel foreign,
the ruined stroke is only,
I keep one hand on,
my hands still remember more,