1. When a Touch Frightens—Instead of Bringing Closeness

There are moments when a touch, instead of drawing us nearer, awakens something that had been carefully locked away.
It doesn’t happen because the touch was wrong — but because it was true. And too close. So close that it bypasses logic and strikes straight at what once loved — and then became afraid to love again.

The body sometimes responds before the mind. It accepts, softens, remembers something.
And then the mind rushes in to defend:
“No. You mustn’t. This is dangerous. This reminds you.”

And so, suddenly, we pull away from what we just recognized.
As if the touch didn’t just reveal something in the other — but something in us.
And that is far harder to face.

Perhaps that’s where something begins that we rarely admit:
Closeness doesn’t fade because we stop feeling — but because we fear what we feel.
And fear, when it stays too long, disguises itself as behavior. As habit. As role.