Touching

It starts, as these things do, with someone leaning in too far— the familiar kiss on a bed, a hand slipped under cloth as if to hide from the world, the ribs syncing for a moment before the dream gives out and morning takes the place.

I remember the dress and later the small astonishment of touching someone else’s fear.

Even now, I feel the ghost of it: my arm around a waist, the quiet facts of skin remembered long after the warmth has gone. Nothing mystical—just contact, the body proving it was here, and me, as ever, half wanting it, half wishing I hadn’t.