Slow burn

Uncurl my sleep-packed limbs, wake them slowly with one tiny little pinpoint of sensation that flushes through my blood. Add another, and another, placed delicately on the scales to keep them on the edge of nearly enough but not quite, not yet; a tracery of pleasure on my skin. Blur the boundaries between deliberate and accidental fuel for the fire, while the flames lick slowly, gradually taking hold.

My mind anticipates and my cool skin responds, warming from the glowing core, and the heated circle turns, slowly tightening with pleasure both vicarious and felt. Let me think I follow my own dictates, while every muscle stretches and flexes, and second-guess me with pure mindlessness; provoke the animal response with perfectly measured pressure that wipes out conscious thought.

Closer to the tipping edge it all slows, pared down and reduced to its essence, and all the excess falls away. And then stripped of the superfluous, of everything beyond my body now, there is nothing to impede the last fast licking flame, nothing to hold me back or block my way, and I can only let it consume me.

I long for you. When I’m falling asleep and when I wake up, and when I least expect it.