Touch Me Like That

I’m scared that if you touch me like that, I’ll forget what he felt like. If you whisper in my ear the same way he did, I’ll forget the warm words he drizzled down my neck.

Put down your cleansing words, I don’t want you to wash him away quite yet. Please don’t take the wilted, dead flowers out of my hair, I don’t want them to be replaced. They are stuck and tangled in my curls and crumble at the slightest touch, but he put them there. They are mine and his and our loves.

If I forget all the goodness he left on me, all the love he doused me in, I’ll only have the scars. Only the burns his fingertips left on my pale skin. Only the spot on my chest where he cracked open my ribcage to view my half-beating heart and blew it out like a flame.

I’m scared that if you touch me like that, I’ll realize that that’s how I should be touched. I'll have no use for the words on my neck and flowers in my hair or that man in my life.