Maybe love is opening your hands

The more I wanted to be loved The more I needed you to stay I tried to hold your heart so tightly Afraid that you would fade away In every night without an answer I felt abandoned and alone I thought that I was thinking of you But I was fighting fears my own I was afraid of losing you That was all it ever was The more someone becomes important The more we’re scared to lose their love But maybe love is not Holding someone in your hands Maybe love is reaching out And letting them be who they are Even when we cannot understand Even when our worlds divide Maybe love is building bridges Without crossing every line If I can call that love Then maybe I can learn To open up my hands There’s always fear inside the feeling Of wanting someone to be safe The more we fear that we may lose them The more our kindness starts to change I want you near But I don’t want the pain I want to trust But I’m afraid again Maybe love and fear Were never enemies at all Maybe they were born together From the distance between us So it’s alright to still be scared I don’t have to make it disappear I can choose to move toward you Even while the fear is here Love is not becoming one Or losing who we are It’s walking different roads Beneath the same familiar stars You have your life And I have mine And somewhere in the space between Something neither of us carried Can become a living thing If I can call that love Then I don’t have to Hold you anymore Like distant stars across the darkness Becoming one enormous sky Maybe we can stay divided And still be connected by the light Someone loved someone before us Someone chose to stay and care Through countless lives and countless years That light kept traveling here And now It has reached me Maybe now It’s mine to carry on When I am hurt When I am frightened When I feel I’m losing everything Before I build another wall I’ll ask myself one simple thing What am I trying to protect? What am I so afraid to lose? Am I reaching out to connect Or letting fear decide what I choose? Love is not holding tighter So someone cannot leave It isn’t building chains around The things we want to keep Maybe love is opening your hands And trusting what remains Giving someone room to choose And choosing them again I don’t have to change the world Maybe one heart is enough Maybe one word spoken gently Can become another kind of love Maybe I can change The next step that I take Maybe I can turn Toward connection instead of fear All my life I searched for love As if it lived inside another heart But maybe love was always here Not only inside you Not only inside me But somewhere In between And if someday I’m afraid to lose again Instead of closing both my hands I’ll open them We can be different We can be distant And still choose to reach across That small decision Again and again From now on That’s what I’ll call love