Slow Burn

Slow burn

That’s how it feels.

Jealousy.

It surges instantly. A flush of anger in the face, the slight clenching of the jaw.

Eyes that rake you. Strip you naked.

Raw, animal instinct.

In a blink so much and yet so easily gone.

A downcast look of disappointment, a head turned away, biting of the lips to curb… it that guilt, pain or longing?

And you look again. Reading their faces for a truth, your truth. Was I transparent? Did they see it? Recognition. Acknowledgement. Hope. Fear. Faint flush of hot and cold simultaneously. Am I ready?

A pause.

And the truth is laid bare, waiting to be picked up and worn.

Instead, we pull the shutter. Tight. Pretense is more fun. Let unsaid things remain unsaid. The cowardly way out.

It has no name. Not liking, not love, not even lust.