L'Étreinte Sécurisante

Lyrics

The room is quiet now.
The lock is turned.
Just the sound of you settling.
The day was sharp edges.
Fluorescent hum and a thousand conversations I didn't want.
My skin felt thin, a map with no borders.
Every nerve, a string pulled too tight.
I was a radio, picking up every station at once.
Static and ghosts.
Now... only this.
L'étreinte sécurisante.
The secure hold.
A pressure that speaks a language older than words.
Telling my body it is safe to land.
Telling my heart it can slow down.
You are the anchor in the storm inside my own blood.
Twenty pounds of ground.
A river of cool glass beads laid over me.
A kindness learned from animals in a chute.
A firm, steady pressure.
Temple Grandin knew.
She built a machine for this feeling.
I just pull you from the chest at the foot of my bed.
L'étreinte sécurisante.
The secure hold.
A pressure that speaks a language older than words.
Telling my body it is safe to land.
Telling my heart it can slow down.
You are the anchor in the storm inside my own blood.
It's a strange thing, isn't it?
To need an object to mimic a body.
To need weight to feel weightless.
But the body remembers a hold the mind forgot how to ask for.
And you never ask for anything back.
The static dies.
The borders return.
My breathing deepens, finds its rhythm under your watch.
You bury me just enough...
to let me live.