Steeping Hands

Beyond self-care

Steep your hands in love.

Guide them

to all the places that have forgotten

what it feels like.

Bring them

to all the places

that are longing to remember.

Lay love gently

on the altar of your body.

Steep your hands in forgiveness.

Let them soak in its warmth

until the bones remember.

Drag your fingertips

across the untouched places,

the ones that turned away

when mercy first unveiled herself.

Rub forgiveness into your skin—

into every crack, every scar,

into the soft, tender flesh

that’s only ever been told what it is not,

instead of how miraculous it truly is.

Steep your hands in rest.

Trace them around all the tired bones,

all the tight muscles,

all the old stories.

Offer your hands like a breath—

a place of sacred holding.

Wait until you hear your fingertips whisper,

Rest now, my dear.

Steep your hands deep in revolution.

Massage them into every place in your body

that has never known its power.

Dig them into the places where fear still lives.

Squeeze them into every cell that is saying,

Enough.

Steep your hands in revolution.

Beat them upon every part of you that feels helpless—

every part that knows,

and weeps

for every body to know love

for every body to know freedom.