I’ve Got My Hands Up

Written By Britt Wolfe
I've Got My Hands Up poem by Britt Wolfe author

Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe

I’ve got my hands up—
not in defeat,
but in the clearest, most deliberate surrender
I have ever offered.

Take it all:
the endless battlefield,
the tangled loyalties,
the throne built from old wounds
and borrowed devotion.

Take every version of the story
that required me to disappear
to keep the peace.

I release it.
I release the cycle.
I release the version of me
who kept returning
to rooms that were never built for my belonging.

I lay down the sword I carried for decades,
its hilt worn smooth
by hope that refused to die.

No more strategies.
No more rearranging my heart
to make space for patterns
that only ever took.

I step back—
hands open,
heart finally unclenched.

The cycle ends here,
not with a final blow,
but with my quiet absence from the story.

I remove myself from the board entirely.
No more pieces left to move.
No more doors left cracked open
out of stubborn, aching love.

And suddenly the air tastes different—
clean, untwisted, mine.

My shoulders loosen.
My breath deepens.
The horizon widens
now that I am no longer standing guard
over a bridge only I was trying to keep open.

Let the old story spin on without me.

I am walking the other way—
lighter, quieter,
free in a way I had forgotten was possible.

Hands still raised.

Not because I lost,
but because I finally understood:
some games survive
only if someone keeps playing them.

And for the first time in years,

I don’t.

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Poetry by Britt Wolfe:

Poetry
I’ve Got My Hands Up
I’ve Got My Hands Up

I’ve Got My Hands Up is about the kind of surrender that does not come from weakness, but from exhaustion, clarity, and the hard-won understanding that some cycles survive only through continued participation. It explores the moment a person finally steps away from a dynamic that has demanded endless emotional labour, hope, and self-sacrifice, and discovers that peace is not found through victory, but through absence. Rather than framing surrender as failure, this poem reclaims it as an act of self-preservation—a quiet refusal to keep offering oneself to something that only knows how to wound.💚

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Relieved
Relieved

Relieved explores the complicated, almost disorienting feeling that can follow the end of something painful that once felt impossible to release. It reflects on the exhaustion of living beneath constant emotional tension—the way fear, hope, and survival can become so tightly intertwined that suffering begins to feel ordinary. Rather than focusing on triumph or revenge, this poem lingers in the quieter aftermath: the stunned relief of discovering that the body no longer has to brace itself for impact, and the fragile, unfamiliar freedom of finally being able to breathe without fear.💚

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Profoundly Sad
Profoundly Sad

Profoundly Sad is a meditation on the grief of unrealized closeness—the sorrow that comes not only from what was lost, but from what might have been possible if tenderness had been chosen over distance, honesty over self-protection, connection over pride. Rather than centring a single villain or dramatic betrayal, this poem lingers in the quieter devastation of erosion: the slow collapse of something that once held the potential to become safe, loving, and enduring. At its heart, it mourns the unbearable reality that some fractures are not inevitable tragedies, but human choices made gradually, repeatedly, and often too late to undo.💚

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My Best (Wasn’t Good Enough)
My Best (Wasn’t Good Enough)

Sometimes the hardest stories are the ones we must tell anyway. This poem was born in the quiet aftermath of pouring every ounce of love, courage, and effort into trying to protect someone who meant the world to me. I gave my absolute best—heart, hands, and sleepless nights—and still it was not enough. There is a particular kind of sorrow that arrives when your fiercest love cannot rewrite the ending you feared most. No redemption arc, no tidy moral. Just the raw, human truth of what it feels like when your best falls short and someone you love slips into the very darkness you tried so desperately to keep at bay. I offer it here with trembling hands, not because it is beautiful, but because it is true. If you have ever tried with everything you had and still came up empty, this is for you. You are not alone in the ache.💚

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I Hope You Live
I Hope You Live

I Hope You Live reflects on the quiet, often unnoticed ways we step outside of our own lives—watching, comparing, waiting for the right moment to begin. It explores the subtle drift into passivity, and the equally subtle return from it—not through grand change, but through small, imperfect acts of presence. This poem doesn’t urge transformation or promise clarity. Instead, it lingers in the moment of recognition, where something shifts just enough to bring you back into your own hours, your own voice, your own life.💚

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This Life Is Mine
This Life Is Mine

This Life Is Mine is a reckoning with the quiet ways a life can be given away without ever being asked for. It reflects on the years spent standing at the edges—supporting, accommodating, disappearing in ways that felt like kindness at the time, but slowly became absence. This poem doesn’t soften that truth or rush past it. Instead, it names the cost, and the moment of recognition that follows—the point where something small but irreversible shifts, and the act of choosing yourself begins, not as a grand declaration, but as a steady, deliberate return.💚

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The Quiet Finding
The Quiet Finding

The Quiet Finding explores the kind of love that doesn’t arrive in grand moments, but forms slowly through shared days and small, unspoken gestures. It’s about the quiet accumulation of care—the habits, the noticing, the choosing—that build something steady and real over time. This poem lingers in the ordinary, where love is not declared, but lived, and where the deepest connections are often the ones that grow without needing to be named.💚

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Every Beginning’s End
Every Beginning’s End

Every Beginning’s End explores the quiet, often unacknowledged truth that every step forward carries a subtle loss within it. It reflects on the small, nearly invisible ways we outgrow places, people, and even versions of ourselves—without ceremony, without pause. This poem lingers in that in-between space, where something is always opening as something else gently falls away, and where growth is not just an act of becoming, but an ongoing practice of letting go.💚

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The Offering
The Offering

The Offering reflects on the quiet, often unnoticed way possibility enters our lives—not as something loud or urgent, but as something small, steady, and entirely ordinary. It explores the idea that the future does not demand certainty or force, but unfolds gently through moments we might otherwise overlook. Rather than offering instruction or reassurance, this poem lingers in the present, where change begins almost imperceptibly, and where even the smallest shift in light can be enough to guide us forward.💚

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There Can Be Brighter Days
There Can Be Brighter Days

There Can Be Brighter Days is not a promise—it’s a quiet offering of possibility. It lives in the reality of long, uneven healing, where progress is rarely visible and hope doesn’t arrive on command. This poem doesn’t rush past the weight of addiction, instability, or the lingering echoes of survival. Instead, it stays with them, acknowledging how heavy and persistent they can be, while gently making space for something else to exist alongside them. Not certainty, not transformation—but the subtle, often unnoticed moments where things begin, almost imperceptibly, to shift.💚

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Grey
Grey

Grey is a meditation on the space between extremes—the quiet, often overlooked place where certainty softens and identity becomes something chosen rather than imposed. It explores the relief of stepping outside rigid definitions, of no longer needing to resolve every question or declare a fixed position. In this poem, the in-between is not confusion, but refuge—a place of balance, nuance, and quiet belonging, where contradictions can coexist and something more honest can begin to take shape. 💚

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Not Every Moment
Not Every Moment

Not Every Moment is a quiet refusal of the pressure to find hope in everything. It lives in the spaces where nothing resolves, where light doesn’t arrive on cue, and where simply continuing is its own kind of truth. This poem offers permission—to sit in the hollow without explanation, to feel without reframing, and to exist without needing to transform the experience into something meaningful or redeemable. It doesn’t promise that things will get better. It simply honours the reality that not every moment does—and that this, too, is part of being human. 💚

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Unacceptable
Unacceptable

This poem was written from a place that doesn’t try to resolve itself. It doesn’t reach for hope or redemption, because not every moment offers those things honestly. Instead, it sits inside one of the darkest emotional states—the feeling of being fundamentally wrong, of carrying something unfixable beneath the surface. It is not a declaration of identity, but a mirror of a real and difficult experience, one that many people move through quietly and without language. This piece doesn’t attempt to comfort. It simply bears witness. 💚

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From, But Not Of
From, But Not Of

From, But Not Of is about the quiet, complicated act of becoming—of carrying where you come from without being confined by it. It explores the tension between roots and growth, between honouring the places and people that shaped you and allowing yourself to evolve beyond them. This poem lingers in that in-between space, where identity is no longer inherited but consciously chosen, and where leaving isn’t a rejection, but a natural extension of who you were always meant to become. 💚

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The Messy Middle
The Messy Middle

The Messy Middle lives in the part of life we rarely celebrate—the long, uncertain stretch between beginnings and endings. It’s about the quiet work of continuing when nothing feels resolved yet, when growth looks less like transformation and more like endurance. This poem lingers in those in-between moments—the ordinary, unremarkable days that slowly shape us—where courage isn’t loud, and healing isn’t linear, but something steady, human, and deeply real. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Fifteen
This Old House: Chapter Fifteen

This final chapter brings the story to a quiet, definitive close, not through resolution, but through continuation. This Old House: Chapter Fifteen returns the house to life, as new occupants arrive unaware of all that has come before, filling the space with their own rhythms, voices, and beginnings. Through the beam’s perspective, we are reminded that while lives pass through a place and eventually move on, something deeper remains—held, remembered, and unchanged beneath it all. As the concluding poem in this series, it offers a steady, unflinching truth: that life does not pause for what was lost, that new stories are built upon the remnants of old ones, and that what endures is not permanence, but the quiet act of bearing witness. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Fourteen
This Old House: Chapter Fourteen

This chapter captures the final, quiet severing—the moment when what remained can no longer be held together. This Old House: Chapter Fourteen follows the youngest daughter as she reaches the point where staying is no longer an act of love, but a slow undoing of herself. Through the beam’s steady perspective, we witness the subtle shift from waiting to choosing, as she moves through the house one last time, recognizing what cannot be carried forward. It is a meditation on the kind of leaving that comes without conflict or closure, and on the profound stillness that follows when the last living thread finally lets go. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Thirteen
This Old House: Chapter Thirteen

This chapter lingers in the quiet, devastating space where life continues but no longer feels lived. This Old House: Chapter Thirteen traces the slow, almost imperceptible decline of someone who remains physically present while steadily receding from the world around them. Through the beam’s steady perspective, we witness how time loses its structure, how care fades into repetition, and how a home begins to mirror the stillness it contains. It is not a story of collapse, but of erosion—the kind that happens quietly, without announcement, until what once filled a space is no longer there in any meaningful way. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Twelve
This Old House: Chapter Twelve

This chapter explores the quiet aftermath of separation, where what remains must learn to exist in a space that has grown too large for it. This Old House: Chapter Twelve traces the subtle but profound shifts that follow departure—not through dramatic collapse, but through the slow thinning of presence, routine, and care. Through the beam’s perspective, we witness how absence accumulates in small, tangible ways, and how those left behind begin to change in response. It is a meditation on the weight of emptiness, the burden placed on those who try to hold what cannot be held, and the quiet ways people begin to disappear without ever leaving. 💚

Read more →
This Old House: Chapter Eleven
This Old House: Chapter Eleven

This chapter marks the moment where what has been quietly unraveling can no longer be contained within silence. This Old House: Chapter Eleven brings the fracture into view, not through confrontation, but through distance—the kind that settles in slowly and becomes impossible to ignore. Through the beam’s steady perspective, we witness a family reshaping itself without ever fully acknowledging what is being lost. It is a study in absence made visible, where departure happens without ceremony, and what remains must learn to exist in a space that no longer holds what it once did. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Ten
This Old House: Chapter Ten

This chapter explores what happens after the moment of loss—when nothing resolves, and life continues in a shape it was never meant to hold. This Old House: Chapter Ten traces the slow, quiet erosion of a family as absence begins to press into every corner of their lives. Through the beam’s perspective, we witness how routines falter, connections strain, and the house itself starts to mirror what is unfolding within it. There is no single breaking point, only a steady unravelling, where what once felt solid becomes fragile, and everything begins to shift around the space that cannot be filled. 💚

Read more →
This Old House: Chapter Nine
This Old House: Chapter Nine

This chapter is the quiet breaking point of the story—the moment where nothing visible happens, and yet everything changes. This Old House: Chapter Nine captures the shape of absence as it forms, not through event or explanation, but through the slow, unsettling realization that someone is no longer there. Through the beam’s steady perspective, we witness how loss first appears: as a delay, a question, a space that cannot be accounted for. It is not an ending, but an opening—one that will remain unresolved, reshaping everything that follows as the house and those within it begin to move around what cannot be filled. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Eight
This Old House: Chapter Eight

This chapter marks the first quiet fracture within something that once felt whole. This Old House: Chapter Eight turns its focus to the eldest daughter, tracing the subtle, almost imperceptible shifts that signal change long before anything is spoken aloud. Through the beam’s watchful perspective, we sense the tension building beneath the surface—the altered rhythms, the unspoken questions, the growing distance that cannot yet be named. Nothing has broken, not yet, but something has undeniably moved. It is a meditation on the moments that go unnoticed in real time, the beginnings of change that only reveal their weight in hindsight, when it is already too late to hold things as they were. 💚

Read more →
This Old House: Chapter Seven
This Old House: Chapter Seven

This chapter deepens the heart of the story, as the house transforms from a place of quiet endurance into a living, breathing home. This Old House: Chapter Seven captures the beauty of ordinary life—the rhythms, routines, and small, unremarkable moments that quietly build something lasting. Through the beam’s perspective, we witness the slow formation of connection, not just between the family, but within the space itself, as it begins to hold something it has never known in quite this way. It is here that observation becomes attachment, and the act of holding shifts from obligation to something closer to meaning. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Six
This Old House: Chapter Six

This chapter marks a quiet but profound turning point, as something unfamiliar enters the house for the first time in years—gentleness. This Old House: Chapter Six introduces a family not through disruption, but through care, intention, and the slow, deliberate act of building a life within the space. Through the beam’s perspective, we feel the shift from endurance to awareness, as it begins to recognize a kind of presence that does not take, but gives. It is here that something long closed begins to open—tentatively, cautiously—as the house is filled not just with people, but with the fragile beginnings of something that might, at last, resemble belonging. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Five
This Old House: Chapter Five

This chapter captures the quiet transformation of a place being reshaped—where change is not an ending, but a layering over what came before. This Old House: Chapter Five explores the illusion of renewal, the careful ways in which spaces are stripped, softened, and reimagined without ever truly releasing their past. Through the beam’s steady perspective, we witness the house being altered into something more palatable, more acceptable, while everything it has held remains just beneath the surface. It is a meditation on time as erosion rather than disappearance, and on the truth that what is covered is not the same as what is gone. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Four
This Old House: Chapter Four

This chapter marks a shift in both atmosphere and awareness, as the house takes on a quieter, more intimate kind of life—one shaped by secrecy, restraint, and unspoken exchanges. This Old House: Chapter Four explores what it means to witness not just presence, but the weight of what is taken, hidden, and endured within closed doors. Through the beam’s perspective, the tone deepens into something more uneasy, more observant, as it begins to recognize the difference between lives lived freely and lives lived under quiet constraint. It is here that observation sharpens into understanding, and the act of holding becomes something more complicated—no longer neutral, but marked by everything the house is forced to carry. 💚

Read more →
This Old House: Chapter Three
This Old House: Chapter Three

This chapter marks the moment where transformation becomes permanence—where something once living is fixed into place and made to carry lives it does not belong to. This Old House: Chapter Three introduces the house itself and the first of many occupants, expanding the story beyond the self and into the quiet, relentless act of witnessing. Through the beam’s perspective, we begin to understand the weight of holding without being seen, of supporting lives that move loudly and carelessly above and below it. It is here that observation sharpens into awareness, and the first traces of something deeper begin to take root—not just endurance, but the slow, steady becoming of a witness who will remember everything. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter Two
This Old House: Chapter Two

This opening chapter lays the foundation for a story told across This chapter moves from belief into breaking—tracing the brutal transformation from something whole into something used. This Old House: Chapter Two explores the loss of identity that comes not just from being taken, but from being divided, reshaped, and repurposed without regard for what once was. Through the tree’s voice, we feel the disorientation of becoming pieces that still remember being one, and the quiet, unsettling realization that purpose can be imposed rather than chosen. It is here, in the aftermath of that understanding, that something new begins to form—not grief, not yet, but the earliest edge of something harder, something that will endure. 💚

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This Old House: Chapter One
This Old House: Chapter One

This opening chapter lays the foundation for a story told across time, memory, and transformation. This Old House: Chapter One introduces a voice that begins in quiet devotion—rooted in belief, in purpose, in the inherited certainty that becoming something “greater” is the ultimate calling. Through the eyes of the tree, we witness the fragile nature of that belief as it collides with a harsher reality, where purpose is not honoured, but taken. This poem sets the tone for the series to come: a long, watchful journey through what is built, what is broken, and what remains to bear witness long after everything else has changed. 💚

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Britt Wolfe

Britt Wolfe writes emotionally devastating fiction with the precision of a heart surgeon and the recklessness of someone who definitely shouldn’t be trusted with sharp objects. Her stories explore love, loss, and the complicated mess of being human. If you enjoy books that punch you in the feelings and then politely offer you a Band-Aid, you’re in the right place.

https://bio.site/brittwolfeauthor
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