I shouldn’t be reading about this again.
That’s the first thing I write because it’s true.
For weeks I’ve been telling myself it’s only curiosity.
Curiosity.
That word still comforts me a little.
I use it as if it explains something.
As if it could close the matter.
But every night I end up coming back.
I don’t come back because I find answers.
I come back to check something.
And I don’t even know exactly what.
Last night I opened a tab I was sure I had already closed.
I stared at it for a few seconds.
Nothing special.
Just a photograph.
One hand resting against another person’s neck.
It wasn’t even particularly intense.
The strange part was something else.
I recognized it before I remembered seeing it.
I froze.
The room was silent.
The computer made that faint sound fans make when dust gathers inside them.
I thought I was tired.
I closed the tab.
I kept thinking about it.
I opened it again.
Just to check.
That’s what I told myself.
Just to check.
I’m starting to distrust that phrase.
Because it keeps arriving earlier.
At first I used it after coming back.
Now it appears before I return.
As if some part of me already knows I’m going to.
What embarrasses me isn’t the fantasy.
It’s not even the idea of submission.
What embarrasses me is the ease.
The ease with which something so small can stay with me for hours.
A hand against a cheek.
A meaningless gesture.
Nothing more.
And yet I keep thinking about it while making coffee.
While working.
While trying to focus on anything else.
This morning I noticed dust gathering on a shelf.
I don’t know how long it had been there.
I ran a finger through it.
The line remained.
For some reason I thought about that photograph.
I don’t know why.
That’s what is beginning to unsettle me.
Not the image.
The association.
The speed.
The feeling that my mind was already there before I arrived.
I keep telling myself that I’m trying to understand.
Maybe that’s true.
But I’m less certain every day.
Because understanding something is supposed to reduce curiosity.
This does the opposite.
The more I read, the more I return.
The more I return, the more I need to check.
And the more I check, the less I remember where any of this started.
Sometimes I try to locate the first moment.
The first image.
The first article.
The first time I spent too long thinking about one hand resting on another person’s skin.
I can’t.
Everything seems to arrive afterward.
As if the origin has vanished.
As if someone tore the first page out of a diary and left me only the pages that followed.
The most uncomfortable part is this:
I’m starting to suspect I’m not looking for information.
I’m looking for a very specific feeling.
That strange instant when something inside me stops arguing.
It never lasts long.
Only a few seconds.
But I keep returning for it.
I don’t know if that means anything.
I don’t know if it should.
I only know that tonight I’ll probably open the same tab again.
And I’ll tell myself it’s just to check.
The worrying part is that I no longer know what I’m checking.
The cup is empty.
The coffee went cold a long time ago.
I’ve checked the time three times.
I don’t remember doing it the first two.
I need to move my neck.
I’m not moving it.
The thought arrived a few seconds ago.
The feeling is stranger.
As if part of me had already finished the movement and I’m only finding out now.
My neck I am not moving it the record cannot close I should…
