Daily Write - Touch

We had practiced. We had prepared. We had anticipated all we could. There was nothing left for us to do now but try. So, here we were, standing in front of each other. In spite of all preparation we had put ourselves through, neither of us were completely ready for what we were about to undertake. 

I was scared. No, more than that. Scared does not give my feelings at that moment enough depth. I was terror stricken. He was too. You didn’t have to be like us to feel our anxiety. It was an unseen fog, sucking all the air out of the room, threatening to choke the two of us. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he reassured me, using that gentle tone of his, “-I- am going to be okay.” 

He could hear my fear. Probably clanging as loud as warning bells. I was already pushing my thoughts into his mind. That was my worst fear, the thing concerning me the most; losing control and hurting him. 

“We don’t have to do this,” I whispered. I wanted to give him a way out. Give me a way out, “We can just label this a bad idea and forget about it. We can simply walk away.” 

“No.” 

His rejection was so simple. So final. So quiet. I felt him calmly pushing back. Pushing down my anxiety, like a cooling breeze running over my skin on a muggy summer day. He had become stronger and he showed me to quell my worry. I took several deep breaths and focused, folding the anxiety in my chest smaller and smaller until it was too small to feel. 

“Settled?” 

“Yes.” 

I could not watch him remove his gloves from those long, spindly fingers of his. Instead, I focused on my own. Nothing more than thin, white, pieces of fabric, they fashioned a barrier that shielded my sanity from drowning in the noise. Removing them was cutting loose my anchor and setting myself adrift in that noise. I could hear the echo of his breathing the same way one sees ripples on a lake. He was unsettled and uncertain. More than I was. Of course he was. The risk he was taking eclipsed my own and no one could know that more than him. I had to focus. 

We both took a step closer to each other. I could not look at him. Not yet. I had to breathe. I had to focus. However, I struggled. My heart hammered against my chest with such force. It only got stronger with every step. I thought at any moment it would break through and burst in front of me. 

“This is harder than I thought it would be.” I breathed.  
“Actually, you surprise me. You are quite calm.” 

His heart beat. I felt it like it was my own, thrumming in my head like a quivering drum. The process was already beginning. I had not noticed until he spoke. We were just within reach of each other, however he seemed so much closer than that. The fog tightened around us, dense, heavy and charged. It was seeping into my pores. He reached his hand towards me, slowly. 

“You’re shaking.” 

My own voice sounded foreign to me. I was losing the ability to recognize myself. 

“I know.” 

I held my hand out towards his. I could taste the fear building in the back of my throat, but I promised myself I would not hurt him. I just kept repeating that I had to focus, visualizing the fear as nothing more than liquid draining out of me and into the floor beneath my feet. I could feel the fog around us, clinging to my skin. It was a brewing storm about to swallow the two of us. I saw our fingers, his and mine, nothing separating them but a breath. And yet to me, it might as well have been a canyon. A canyon that I had to jump across.

 “I trust you.” 

His quiet finality. 

“Wait! No!” 

But it was too late to pull away. He clasped my hand in his. The burning jolt that followed seared into my flesh, bore into my stomach, ripped through my chest. I couldn’t breathe. My skull felt like it had been set ablaze inside a crushing vice. My entire body threatened to explode into ash and melt into nothing. I wanted to resist, to scream, to pull away and run. Instead, I forced myself to endure it all and look. Forced myself to pull my head up and stare into his eyes. His body seized like a leaf twisting in the wind. His face was pinched in agonizing pain. But, he too searched for my eyes. We found each other and in that moment I thought I had fell. But soon realized it was not falling. I was melting, disappearing, being absorbed into those eyes. 

I no longer saw him. No longer spoke to him. I felt him. I simply felt him. We were nothing more than two existences, two thoughts, two energies swirling in the presence of each other. We knew nothing and yet we knew everything. We were new and carefree. We were old and satiated with our lives as they had been. We ran, we flowed, we flew, we slipped farther and farther away into that vast expanse. This space of nothing occupied only by the pure essence of us. Never had I felt so close to someone. So together. We were two objects occupying the same space. 

Time passed. How much, I am not sure. I walked and remembered I had legs. Remembered I was made of muscle and bone. I felt that weight pulling me back into reality. I was slowly rising back to the surface, feeling my own skin, hearing myself breathe, feeling the beat of my heart in my chest. My mind was drifting, failing to latch onto anything concrete. I tried moving my body, but my limbs would not respond.. 

I could still feel him in my mind as I lied there, motionless. He was mist clinging to high mountain cliffs. I felt his smile and heard his gentleness echo in my head. 

“You are butterflies.”