Today I saved something I’m embarrassed to admit I saved.
Not because it was extreme.
Not even because it was explicit.
It was a description of pain.
Nothing more.
And yet I bookmarked it.
I don’t know why.
Well.
That’s not true.
I think I do know why.
I just don’t know how to admit it.
At first I told myself I was trying to understand.
That’s what I always do.
I read.
I research.
I analyze.
I turn things into ideas so I don’t have to ask myself why they interest me.
This time it didn’t work.
Because I kept thinking about it afterward.
Hours afterward.
While working.
While eating.
While brushing my teeth.
I wasn’t thinking about the pain.
I was thinking about my reaction to it.
That’s the part that worries me.
I’ve noticed that whenever I find a story where someone describes a mark, a punishment, or a physical challenge, I stay on the page longer than I need to.
I reread it.
Sometimes several times.
As if something is hidden there.
As if I missed a sentence.
But I’m never looking for the sentence.
I’m looking for the feeling it gave me the first time.
And I never find it in exactly the same way.
Tonight I opened a page I’d already read.
I know because I remembered some of the lines.
The strange thing is that I also remembered where the knot in my stomach had appeared.
The first time it happened here.
The second time it happened sooner.
That unsettled me.
Because it means I was already expecting it.
And if I was expecting it…
what does that say about me?
I keep telling myself it’s only curiosity.
That there’s a huge difference between reading about something and wanting it.
And there probably is.
But it’s becoming harder to separate the two.
Not because I want to do anything.
Not yet.
Because I’m starting to wonder why certain ideas stay.
Why they return.
Why they take up space.
There’s something deeply uncomfortable about realizing that part of me wants to keep looking.
Not because I enjoy pain.
I don’t even know if I would.
The uncomfortable part is discovering that I want to understand why someone would accept it.
And then discovering that I want to understand it a little too much.
I’ve closed several tabs tonight.
Actually closed them.
With the genuine intention of stopping.
Five minutes later I was thinking about one specific sentence.
Just one.
I don’t remember the whole text.
I only remember how it made me feel.
And somehow that feels worse.
Because it means I’m not collecting information.
I’m collecting something else.
Something I still don’t know how to name.
I should sleep.
I should stop reading about this for a few days.
I should think about anything else.
But I keep checking my history.
Not to open anything.
Just to check.
I’m not even sure what.
And I think that’s what embarrasses me most.
The suspicion that curiosity is no longer the reason I keep coming back.
Only the excuse.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
