The universe did not recoil

She never learned
how to be held
without vanishing.

For years
she remained that child,
arms outstretched,
like something waiting
that no one ever reached for.

At night
her voice thinned to almost nothing:
Someone, please
just once
hold me like I exist.

But no one came.

She felt like
a shadow the warmth forgot.

She moved through herself
like a place
no one had ever touched
and remained.

Hunger lived inside her,
the quiet kind,
that carves an emptiness that echoed
behind the ribs
where touch should have been.

She faded
like warmth leaving a body
no one is holding.

One night
too empty
to keep her shape
she fell,
not downward
but inward,

And there
with a voice
barely stronger than breath
she asked:
Hold me
like I am not a mistake.
Please hold me
like I don’t have to disappear
to stay.

And the universe answered
without asking why.

It gathered her
in slow-burning light,
pressed her
against an endless chest
that did not recoil.

Galaxies curved around her
like arms
that remain.
Light found
what had never been held.

Her heartbeat
that lonely, trembling thing
echoed
through constellations,
through distant burning suns,
until it was no longer
the only sound.

And there,
in the arms of the stars,
the child
who had never been held
did not disappear.

She stayed.