Letting someone touch me
is like dancing with the devil.

The way I flinch
whenever someone
goes to touch
me

or the way
I have to try and train my
brain that the
boy that is holding me
at night now isn’t trying
to choke me when he
moves his hand around
my face -
all reminds of a
duet dance the stumbling
and passion.


Touching me
in the slightest is like
balancing on our toes to tango
and I hate
that my past still haunts me to this
day and I think that everyone in my
room with an outstretched hand has
a gun behind their back and
that at any moment a
sweet encounter
could be something else.

Something
terrifying,
a reminder of why
I don’t trust guys
and why I’m so desensitised
to the violence - why
don’t my eyes close and
let me snooze or drift into a
place where I cannot be hurt?

I am an adult
that is
learning to trust and to love
from the start again -
learning the basics
of human connection and
communication and

sometimes I wish you
could see through my eyes
just to realise
how dark the other side
really is.