still

M.L.


I’m writing
because your mouth
is still on me,

because the taste
hasn’t faded
and my body
hasn’t decided
it’s allowed to.

Your hands
are still there –
heavy in a way
that isn’t gentle,
certain not because
they know,
but because
they don’t ask anymore.

They leave
weight behind,
not memory.

I let them.

I feel them
in my shoulders,
in my neck,
the way they hold now –
like they’re taking
something back,
like they’ve earned
the right
to be sure.

I keep coming back
to your throat,
that hard rise
under the skin
I used to control
without thinking.

My mouth
remembers it
better than anything else –
where to press,
how long to stay -
and then stops.

I don’t take
that space anymore.

It’s not tenderness.
It’s recognition,
strained and exact,
the kind that doesn’t soften
just because it shouldn’t
still exist.

This probably
sounds banal.
I don’t care enough
to correct it.

Precision
feels dishonest here.

With us,
words
have always arrived
too late.
Now
they would arrive
wrong.

Hands move first,
mouth follows,
breath shortens.

Whatever needs explaining
doesn’t survive
what you do
with me.

There’s nothing careful
in it,
nothing measured.

Just bodies
doing what
they already know –
or what one of them
still needs to do.

I’m not pretending
this wants to become
something else.

When we’re close
there’s no restraint
left for me
to learn.

My body
doesn’t stop itself.
I don’t ask it to.
Yours
never does.

We meet
through our bodies,
because words
would turn this
into something
that needs forgiving –
and neither of us
is ready
for that.


01/31/2026