At Arms Length

I step back when the air shifts.

Not suddenly-just enough to keep the quiet from becoming heavy. I notice the moment it starts, the ease and the way my body softens into it. How being seen stops feeling so accidental. Closeness is not a threat and I am not in danger but that is when I can no longer stay. I am on fire and set ablaze.

Thats when I retreat. I tell myself that I need space. I tell myself that I am fine, that it is fine. They will be fine.

There was once a time that such gentleness reached me but it left a bruise that I cannot point to. Since then, closeness carries a weight and warm a question that I do not have answer to.

I am cautious of the hands that stay and of the voices that do not ask me to perform for them like a clown on a unicycle or a parrot speaking for its share of the cracker. Of the safety I yearned for but now feels like standing with nothing to protect me expect the trust they ask for.

Pain remembers and it lives quietly in my body. It wakes at the first sign of something wanting to stay.

So when someone moves towards me, I move away. Not because I do not feel the pull but because I do. Because being held, in any form, asks me to let go of who I worked so hard to rebuild.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to remain where I am. To let the moment finish unfolding, to let someone hold what someone else broke.

But for now, the distance has learned my name. It calls sweetly for me, promising nothing in return for stillness. For now, the call answers faster than hope.