to have and to hold

I do not like to be touched. Unless I want to be.
Take that in whatever way you want, but it is an interesting part of human connection to hold and be held. It's a vulnerability and submission all at once. It's trust.

We are so very capable of violence and hurt, yet we actively choose not to. A hug can be gentle or aggressive. It's an expression of some people's internal emotions. It can be anything, as people can be.

It is an expected reaction to meeting people in certain environments, or you know and claim to love. Or to say goodbye.

It's not something I give out freely, but regardless, it is taken from me. I am pressured heavily to hug people when I don't want to. I am in the wrong to reject. I am the strange one for not wanting to feel the tepid human shape cling to my form. I must smile and hold them back. I don't want to feel someone's awkwardness. Yet, it is there. 

I must count the seconds before it is acceptable to let go so it isn't 'weird'. I've already said no. I've already said I don't like it. But here we are. Incorrect shapes in formation. 

I can understand that some hugs may be the last. I can. But I am more than a warm body. I am not good at hugs; I rarely want them. I want my words to warm someone's sorrows when I'm gone. Not the memory of the thing that I'm stuck in. But thats what I am viewed as. A body.



Someone I am not fond of attempted to hug me days ago, and I cannot stop thinking of it. I'm not angry; It's a typical reaction most give. I've never personally initiated it, but others have towards me, and this individual is known to observe others before acting. But this doesn't change how I regard him. He was an individual I could go without seeing ever again. That has not changed.