Needs of the flesh

It’s been so long since hands hovered near my skin. Lips, with heat and certainty, dared to taste my trembling sighs. The hinges of my heart are rusted. I am too clumsy to remember the touch I ache for outside of my dreams. Yet, I burn. A desperate wick yearning for a match. I would shiver if hands reached for me. Maybe a bit from fear, but also from the wild rush of being found again. I am no siren or a perfect muse. I am just a worn and ruined woman with hands that have forgotten the rhythm of the dance.

How many nights have I cradled emptiness? Whispering a shape into the dark? How many mornings have I woken, aching for a weight pressing against me? Years of starving the hunger. The feast of me no one claims. If you stand infront of me you would find me too brittle. Too clumsy and too shy. You would laugh at these hands that forgot how to beg for touch. I will fall apart in the nearness of you, silently wishing to feel the pull of you anchoring me back to life. I am ashamed for pretending now. My soul raw. Longing has made a wreck of me.

If I wrote you a letter, I’d never send it. My words stick to my tongue. My words are like birds too long caged. Absence has hollowed me out. Fear wraps around my hands like rope. I ache–God, I ache–to be undone. Loneliness clings like a second skin. I would shatter so easily. All it would take is one word, one breath, and I would fall apart mid-plea. My edges are raw. Bruised spaces inside me. It would not be cruel of you to turn away because we both know I am too broken.

Yet, if you asked, if you only asked. I’d be destroyed. If you only knew what I dream of–

I would come to you shy, with trembling hands and a heart hammering so loud you’d have to hear it. Touch me with reverence. Would I simmer an aching hunger in your eyes? How I would crave you. I’d crave the first slow slide of your hands, tugging me closer. Your fingertips learning the softness of my skin, pausing where I shiver. My breath would hitch, forgetting how to let go. Your mouth at my neck, your tongue tracing the forgotten places, your breath whispering down my spine until I’m arching into you, inviting you, pleading without words. Press your body into mine until my legs part without thought. Welcoming you, too long withheld. I want to feel your careful strength. How you guide me open. How you slide into me slow and aching. Move inside me. Touch my face. Kiss my mouth open. Suck my breasts. I’ll whisper your name like it’s something sacred. Let me be undone in your arms–not by force, but like an overwhelming flood.