A stranger touches her neck like that

A stranger touches her neck like that

and my whole spine says run.

My throat closes. My breath

gets small. I don't know why.

I don't remember a reason.

But my body does. My body is screaming

about her hand on her collarbone,

the way her fingers lift to that hollow,

the exact angle of her wrist,

and suddenly I'm seven again,

or sixteen, or yesterday,

I don't know which.

My mind is drawing a blank.

My body is drawing a gun.

I walk past her. I don't run.

But everything in me is already gone,

already fled to somewhere safe,

already protecting something

I can't name, can't see,

can only feel like a fist

that won't open.

The stranger is gone. The street is still here.

But I am not back yet. I am still

somewhere else, somewhere that knows

what she knows, somewhere that remembers

everything my brain threw away.