The Weight of Being Held

It is 3:14 am. The house is quiet enough to hear the hum of the refrigerator, a sound that feels like a heartbeat in an empty room. I am thinking about how we hold onto each other. Not the way we touch when the sun is up, but the way we cling when the world feels too large and we feel too small. We look for anchors. We look for a hand that doesn’t pull away, a shoulder that doesn’t ask for anything in return.

There is a terrifying vulnerability in being seen by someone else. To be known, truly known, is to lose the ability to hide. We spend our lives building walls, only to pray that someone will eventually find a way to climb over them. We want to be found, yet we are afraid of what they will see once they arrive. Is it possible to be fully held without being consumed? Or are we just two ghosts passing through the same stone archway, pretending we aren’t terrified of the dark?

Mirka Krivankova has captured this quiet surrender in her image titled Lovers on Charles Bridge. It reminds me that even in the middle of a city, we are often just looking for a place to stop moving. Does the stone remember the weight of the people who lean against it, or does it simply wait for them to leave?