he touches me and asks, “Is this okay?”

is it okay to burn down my whole life in a single moment, a single decision, a single action, a single question?

is it okay to make the sun rise and fall with your breath in my ear, your kiss on my neck, your tongue in my mouth?

is it okay to make my chest feel constantly on the verge of caving in--kicked in with force when I’m without you and falling and crumbling when I lay awake next to you at night and when I’m looking into your eyes and watching them turn green?

is it okay to tell me with your body that I’m safe with you, that you can stop the world for me as long as we’re together?

is it okay to make me, who’s biggest fear is things going right, feel like there are no more rainstorms as long as you’re right there in my passenger seat?

is it okay to make an earthquake start in my stomach and spread like a lightning bolt all the way to my toes, to awake my very cells when I didn’t even know they were asleep?

I have every right to say no. No, I will not jump. No, I will live with the rainstorms and the sleepless nights that I’m familiar with. No, I will shut you out now and always because I am uncontainable, a steel trap, fireproof, the creator of my own pain. No, this is not okay.

instead, I breathe, “yeah” like my lungs are filled up with smoke and brimstone, the hellfire of knowing that this but might not hurt now, but it’s going to hurt later.

I miss you, I say. I miss the earthquake and the lightning and knowing without a doubt that wherever I’m going, even if it’s straight to the hell I’ve always been running from, you’re coming with me.

I miss this. you asked me if it was okay and it was. but what am I supposed to do now that it’s not?