The Neck
There’s something ridiculous about admitting this.
Because I don’t even know why I noticed it in the first place.
Out of all the things I could have watched, read about, or remembered, I somehow became fixated on something as specific as a neck.
Not mine.
Well.
Mine too.
But that came later.
At first it showed up in videos.
In photographs.
In stories.
And it wasn’t even the focus of the scene.
Sometimes I was reading about something else entirely and suddenly realized I’d spent several minutes staring at the exact same detail.
A hand.
A posture.
The way someone tilted their head.
Nothing more.
The strange thing is that I didn’t understand what I was looking for.
Because if someone had asked me directly, I wouldn’t have known how to answer.
I still don’t know how to answer.
I remember closing one tab and opening another.
And then another.
All different.
All strangely similar.
As if I were searching for something specific without knowing what it was.
I told myself it was curiosity.
And maybe it was.
At first.
But curiosity usually disappears once you find the answer.
This did the opposite.
Every answer created another question.
Every image created another search.
Every story left me with the uncomfortable feeling that something was still missing.
I started recognizing patterns.
That was worse.
Because it meant I was paying attention.
Far more attention than I wanted to admit.
Suddenly I found myself reading comments.
Looking for explanations.
Reading strangers’ experiences.
Trying to figure out what they saw.
What they found there.
What it was that I was beginning to notice too.
And the more I read, the stranger I felt.
Not calmer.
Stranger.
Because the excitement started mixing with something I didn’t know how to name.
It wasn’t just desire.
It wasn’t just fantasy.
I’m embarrassed to write that.
Because it sounds absurd.
But it’s true.
There were nights when I told myself I was done.
That I’d read enough.
That it was just a passing curiosity.
And half an hour later I would find myself searching again.
Reading again.
Trying to understand again.
What I couldn’t understand was why I kept coming back.
That was the real question.
Not what I was looking at.
But why I couldn’t stop looking.
And I think that’s where the problem began.
Because it stopped being a topic.
And started becoming a place.
A mental place I returned to more and more often.
Without ever fully deciding to.
If I could explain exactly what I was looking for, it would probably worry me less.
But I still can’t.
I only know that something as small as the way someone tilts their head started out occupying a few seconds.
And now it takes up far more space than I like to admit.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
