Losing the battle

You come creeping into my daydreams, skirting the edge of consciousness in the place just beyond my vision. You find me in idle moments; a knifepoint traced across the skin on the inside of my thigh, down the arc of my spine, searching. Ghost-motions, shadow touch, an echo of what went before.

All day, you find me. When a lock of hair falls across my breastbone. When the tail of my shirt skims the small of my back. Like a lit flame I can't put out, scorching my skin. Rumbles of buses and strangers' touches, whispering to relent.

I walk faster, to outpace it, but I can't walk fast enough, the wind as it passess a caress. I almost run, I want to run.

Leave me, please leave me. I'm losing the battle to this conspiracy of touch.

Intake of breath, a little too sharp.

Please.

All the things I want and dare not say aloud.