so reckless you might start feeling; beth

[adna]

one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing
one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide

There is a piece of her that considered not bringing this to him. That thought about hiding it. She has promised herself that she will not push him. That she will not ask more of him than he volunteers. For the last time, she would accept whatever he offered and whatever he was willing to give. She would not ask for his love or his involvement or his anything.

Nothing except his quiet presence.

She would handle this, raise their daughter, and ask him of nothing.

But she had not been able to stop herself from coming to him for this. For seeking out the only kind of stability she could find in the quiet of his eyes. She so quickly unravels and so quickly feels the edges of her threads fray and he doesn’t. He is the calm in the storm.

He is the same now.

She can feel it like a drug on her tongue. She can feel the way it stops herself from fluttering and coming undone and she clings to it. She presses his calm into her chest until she can breathe a little easier. Shaken, she presses her forehead into the width of his neck and breathes in deeply, trying to stabilize and not focus on all the fears that materialize around her.

“She didn’t like the playground,” she whispers. Her daughter is too independent and fierce and proud to truly love integrating with other children her age. Her breath is shaky but the longer that she stays there, pressed against him, she can feel her pulse start to stabilize.

“I don’t know where else she could have gone. I don’t know where to start looking even.”

Maybe that made her a poor mother.

Maybe she should have known that all along.

ADNA