Degrees of Care

By Sam Holden

AMAB (unnerving) 

No label. 

No footnote.  

I am not here to soften myself 

into something consumable. 

I am not your mirror. 

I am not your handle.  

If I unsettle you, 

that is yours to weather. 

If I make you uncomfortable, 

sit with it.  

I’m busy.  

I am the lightning 

that hits wood and glass 

and leaves them changed.  

I overload systems.  

I am not a debate. 

---

Doors 

I learned your fears by osmosis;  

you walked past mine like suggestions.  

I kept the wardrobes closed. 

As if hinges could remember.  

I folded the dark back into itself 

so nothing with teeth 

could rehearse your name.  

You left doors ajar. 

Cold spilling from the aircon 

like loose change you never bent to catch.  

I adjusted my body to your unease. 

You adjusted the room 

to your convenience.  

This is not a fight. 

It’s an inventory.  

Doors.  

Degrees of care 

measured 

in how much air escapes 

before someone notices. 

In how much work one table can hold 

while full of idle monomers, 

still brushes, 

files that do not shape.  

Apparently not enough. 

---

Pockets 

With your hands in your pockets 

you reached for me –

elbows bending, shoulders offering, 

fingers busy elsewhere.  

Coins clicking softly.  

Lint.  

A dried map of something that wanted 

to be remembered. 

Once sticky and salty-sweet.  

Rearranging cock and keys, 

into a shape that would seem to invite,  

to tease, to offer, to lead.  

You leaned in 

like someone checking the weather 

without knowing what rain is.  

If I felt chosen 

it was the way a mug feels chosen 

by a grasping hand.  

Only later did I understand: 

you never let go of anything 

to hold me. 

---

Pace 

You were always already inside – 

I was still parking. 

Helmet on, keys in ignition.  

The moment begun without me.  

I was still arriving 

to where you had decided 

to be going.  

You moved on while I was focused. 

Not impatient. 

Just continuing 

from a head start I never shared.  

Even in bed 

you were already there – 

rhythm found, breath set, 

want in motion.  

I learned to hurry toward 

a place you had already reached 

and call that – 

meeting.  

Sometimes, you would say 

we hadn’t done anything...  

As if catching up 

didn’t count as being present.  

It never was about slowness. 

It’s about sequence.  

You began. 

I followed.  

And the distance between those two acts 

is where I stopped caring. 

---

Stagnation 

The universe takes back the spent grammar, 

in smoke and flame and soot and ash.  

You have done your work. 

Damage and repair. 

Clarity through forced observation.  

I disperse you. 

I disperse the pent-up anxiety I have been causing myself 

by standing in a revolving door.  

And I quietly fold up the remains, 

casting them away, 

like salty spray into the wind. 

---

Sam Holden (they/them) is a queer writer and performance poet whose work explores gender interiority, relational memory and the politics of care through hybrid poetic forms. Their ongoing project, 'Bucles de Mi', maps internal dialogue, desire and emotional architecture across poetry and prose. Born in the UK and raised in Spain, Sam writes from a place of migration, embodiment and reclamation. Follow Sam on Instagram: @samwearsheels  

Photo credit: Sam Holden