Pulse.

I can still feel your hands on my skin-

miles away, years away-so what does that mean?

You didn't scar me, one of the few who didn't,

but you left your mark all the same.

I don't know what to do with it.

I don't even know what to call it.

Is it love? Is it lust?

Or just something residual,

a shadow that keeps pace behind me,

a ghost that hums beneath my ribs?

You leave, yet I still hear your voice-

low, steady, a song between stations.

I still taste it in the back of my throat,

still see its umber waves folding over themselves

in the back of my skull,

moving like a sacred pulse under my skin.

Why must you live rent-free in my bloodstream?

Why can't I let you go?

You're not mine to keep-

I made sure of that,

we made sure of that-

and yet here I am,

every day, every night, every god-damned minute,

still tethered to the echo of you.

It's inescapable.

You are inescapable.

And I'm beginning to wonder-

Am I even trying to run?