# The Wound of Touch Touch me not with those hands— they carry the dust of other skies, the salt of strangers' tears. Your fingers are maps I cannot read anymore, each line a country I've already lost. When you reach for me, I become a thing of glass— so close to breaking I forget I was ever whole. The gentleness in your palm is cruelty wearing a soft mask. It whispers what I cannot bear to hear: that once, we fit together like a prayer. Now even your shadow feels like trespassing. I am learning the vocabulary of distance— how to say *no* without words, how to turn away while your hand still hovers in the air, a question without answer, a touch that never lands. There is a wound that only touch can make. There is a wound that only touch can deepen. Do not mistake my stillness for consent. Do not read my silence as permission. The skin remembers what the heart is trying to forget— the weight of your hand, the warmth that was a lie, the tenderness that tore me open. So keep your hands in that careful distance where they belong, where they cannot remake me into someone who still believes in the mercy of another's touch.

Show me your sin,
Show me your truth.

This is your home.—The moment she said it, Nira moved closer, wet hair brushing near me.

"Outside, the rain has turned violent. Will you stay with me tonight?" Nira gave no answer.

"The distance between us has grown so much. I want to narrow it somehow. These past two weeks have been consumed with office work, heavy and relentless. But why did you take so long to come?"

She whispered urgently—"Listen, when you stay away like this, it becomes unbearably hard to write poems about you."—And with that, she tucked her feet into the fold of mine, settling into comfort, drawing my warm hand to the soft hollow of her belly. "Shubhra, do you understand how restless I feel?"

"When you turn toward me, bury your face in my chest, and in the tender wet touch of your lips I watch you close your eyes in a tremor of excitement—in that moment, your enchanting face eases my waiting, even if only a little, and a strange peace settles across my body."

"There's an extraordinary intoxication in your voice, do you know, Nira? Will you stay awake with me through the night? My chest heaves like a violent tide—every time I think you might leave me, I understand it, feel it in my bones."

She didn't answer. She had closed her eyes. I waited a few moments—but no response came. Breathing hard, rapid... I could barely make out the words she spoke so softly—"You're not just close to my body, you're close to my soul."

The glass on the table by the bed suddenly rolled to the floor and shattered with a jagged, violent sound! Perhaps anger, or despair—something; I drew it in with a deep breath, and in her touch sought desperately to dissolve all my pain. Your lips trembled slightly, and your lashes fluttered with the thickness of petals.

All your rapture rests upon my lips!