Gomu O Tsukete: To

Gomu o tsukete to — and in that small, careful syllable to ("and then"), the whole prayer of the almost-touching: Let me come close without ceasing to be someone who can still say please.

So you roll it on — not because you don't want to feel her, but because you want to feel her tomorrow, and the day after, and because the only way to hold fire is to name it first as flame. gomu o tsukete to

She said, gomu o tsukete to — not as a command, but as a hinge. A pause between wanting and warning. Gomu o tsukete to — and in that

Rubber stretches. It remembers nothing. No heat, no salt, no name. It is a second skin that learns nothing of the body it covers — a boundary that pretends to be a bridge. A pause between wanting and warning