Warmth to Borrow

I want to be emaciated,
not of flesh

but of need.

My hands are so cold.
I keep wondering if they will ever learn warmth,
as if warmth were something earned,
something the body could retain.

Everywhere you touch me,
my skin ignites.
Flames, sudden and violent,
as if I mistake burning for salvation.

I confuse your warmth with interest,
with care,
with something that belongs to me.
But it doesn’t.
It never did.
It is warmth I borrow,
pressed briefly against my chest
before it fades.

Intimacy gives the illusion of belonging.
It tells me I am held
when I am only close.

Each kiss feels like survival,
like I’m siphoning life from your mouth
to nourish what’s starving in me.
When it fails,
when nothing inside me wakes up,
I kiss you again,
believing insistence might become resurrection.

You touch me
and the desire to disappear loosens.
This is easier
than repairing what’s broken.
For a moment, the void quiets.
For a moment, I hate myself less.

When our fingers intertwine,
I want you endlessly.
When we part,
everything turns distant, unreal,
as if the closeness never happened.

And I understand then,
perhaps, it isn’t you I want.
It’s the life you bring back into me.

My sadness spreads easily.
I’m afraid of dimming your light,
of pulling you into spirals
you never asked for.
I wonder if my detachment hurts you,
if I am depth,
or simply damage that learned how to speak.

I trust you
more than I trust myself.
That should mean something.
It terrifies me instead.

When I reach for your mouth and miss,
I settle for your attention.
Can I just be your friend?
Can you hold my hand for a while?

We kiss.
I breathe you in.
Then the sadness returns:
heavy, splitting.
So I focus on your fingertips,
the way they trace my skin,
memorizing a heat
I already know I will lose.

Make me feel something.
Prove to me there is still
a pulse inside me,
a will,
somewhere.

But you don’t want me that way.
And it confirms
everything I already believe.

My hands are so cold.
They will never learn warmth.
Because warmth you borrow
is not warmth you keep.

God, make me emaciated,
so I never reach for heat again.

Imane Al Maimouni