An Ancient Dance, Rediscovered

I know you with the strange familiarity of a song heard once and remembered years later.

Not proof of another lifetime, not a promise written in stars, but a feeling: we have met somewhere inside the human longing to be recognized.

Your touch is gentle. It does not erase old wounds. It asks permission and waits for the answer. In that patience, parts of me long guarded begin to loosen.

Your scent enters the room, earth after rain, the ordinary intimacy of someone drawing near. I breathe, and the present becomes enough.

Our pulses do not need to align. Our breaths sometimes do, then wander back to their separate rhythms. Even closeness leaves room for two bodies.

In your embrace, I do not become child and lover. I remain myself, adult, vulnerable, free to move nearer or step away.

What draws us back? Perhaps memory. Perhaps desire. Perhaps the simple grace of being treated tenderly.

I do not need an ancient thread to make this moment sacred. Here we are, meeting again by choice, familiar as a melody, new as the breath we have not taken yet.