composed a long time ago

I adjust my eyes to the darkness but there's nothing to see. You move to avoid me. Why bring me to this point then slip away? I don't lose interest that quickly. Have I gotten so into you that I don’t know where I am? No, I am here. And now you tell me to leave.

If this were a movie, I could rewind, back to the beginning of the night, or earlier in the day when all we were doing was talking. There's no harm in idle chatter. If I take your hand when we're walking, it's just a friendly gesture. You don’t feel the warmth of my palm or my fingers curling around yours. If I press more firmly than I should, and stroke my thumb across your skin, it's because it lets me reach deeper into you.

 It's a head-spinning rush. I want to lean in and press my head on your shoulder, or your neck. Do you wear cologne? No one does, these days. Maybe I could smell your soap, or your sweat, or… this is none of my business. You are none of my business. I don’t feel you in my head right now. This longing has traveled down my body, spreading its wings like a butterfly.

After the spinning in my head comes the expansion in my ribcage. Open up your chest, the yoga instruction said. I inhale a deep breath and expand to just that — an open chest. I need to take this pressure off my chest.

Still, the sensation travels, down through my stomach; it's connected somehow with making me weak in the knees. I have jumped a connection but I can just as easily return to that feeling in my stomach. It is sinking lower down, like fingers reaching into me and fluttering against my pelvic bone. This is just a walk. Whatever you do, don’t take me home with you.

More of me than my face can blush, and I feel warmth where I really shouldn’t. I want to go there but you will not take me. It is only that I don’t know that yet. 

I let him take me home.