It's everywhere now.
The warmth doesn't wait for stillness. It doesn't wait for quiet. It curls up in the middle of things – while I'm folding laundry, stirring tea, brushing hair from my face.
I don't do anything to invite it. But it comes.
The way fabric brushes over me when I move. The way my thighs press together when I shift my weight. Little things. Barely anything. But they feed it all the same.
I catch myself drifting.
My fingers linger longer over my side when I smooth my shirt. My breath catches faintly when I stretch in a way that tilts my hips just so. The mirror doesn't even have to be there for the warmth to stir.
It hums low. Steady. Present.
And I know – I'm not chasing it anymore. It's chasing me.
It doesn't take long before I give in.
I don't plan it. I don't even really think it through. The warmth pulls at me sharper this time – low but constant, winding tighter the longer I try to ignore it.
I slip away. Just for a moment. Just to quiet it.
No mirror. No deliberate pacing. Just breath and fingertips, the soft weight of fabric, the need that hums louder than it should.
It takes barely a moment.
The release is quick – shallow, sharp, almost breathless. My body tenses, curls in, and then it's over. My breath shakes. My hand stills.
The warmth fades, but not fully. Not cleanly.
I stand after, brushing hair from my face, my hands slightly unsteady.
It's easy. Too easy.
The thought lingers even as I dress, as I step back into the quiet. There's no regret. No real concern. Just the faintest awareness:
I've crossed into something else.
The quiet that follows doesn't feel the same.
I sit in the stillness, hands folded loosely in my lap, but the usual calm doesn't quite settle. The warmth is gone, but something echoes beneath it – a restless pulse, low and strange.
It's not discomfort. Not regret. But there's a weight now. A kind of awareness that hums under my skin long after the breath slows and the quiet returns.
I glance at the mirror without meaning to.
I don't stand. I don't touch again. But the thought is there, soft and steady:
I could. I could again.
The idea doesn't startle me.
I let my eyes close. I let the quiet stretch around me. But the warmth – no longer just warmth – stirs faintly at the edges of me. Not urgent. Not sharp.
But there.
And it doesn't fully fade.