Absolutely, Unequivocally

I wanted to touch her hand.
Feel her fingers intertwined with mine.
That's it. Just once. For a moment.
Then I'd be done. I'd be good.
It would be enough.

Or it would be addicting.
And I'd be fucked.
Absolutely.
Unequivocally.
Fucked.

So I did nothing.
I sat, I spoke.
Gestured with my hands.
Perhaps too much.
I don't know.

One day it would go away.
The craving, the necessity, the need to know.
It always did.
Surely, she was like the others, the rest.
Wasn't she?

Surely, I thought.
Still talking, still gesturing.
Still keeping my hands busy.
But as I looked at her, I realized.
She wasn't them; they weren't her.

And there was nothing I could do.
I was fucked.
Absolutely, unequivocally fucked.

She was becoming what she shouldn't be, couldn't be.
There was little I could do to stop it.

A touch or not.
It didn't matter.
I talked on, tried to take my thoughts elsewhere.
Willed myself to be elsewhere.
But there was nowhere else.

She was everywhere, would be everywhere.
And damned to this awakening,
I vowed - against my most ardent wish -
She would never know what I know.
Feel what I feel.

So I sat, I spoke.
I gestured with my hands.
They had to stay busy, my hands.
Because in one touch they could tell all my secrets.
Absolutely and unequivocally, every last one of them.