Don’t touch me

Don't ever touch me.

Not because I'm afraid of germs, or I think that I'm better than you.

I'm sensitive. Like super-duper overly, hinging on spidey sense sensitive.

I think that touch is powerful. To purposefully reach out with your self and engage in breaking up the atoms between you and the person you're reaching toward is a deliberate and intentional act.

It changes things.

I need space. I need those atoms and the ever-present pressure of air to keep the things that are surging and raging inside of myself to hold them in like a self-protective aura of reminders and introspection.

Don't take that away from me.

Here's a fun bit. One in every four women and one in every six men have been sexually assaulted.

If I am around you, then I am the one.

I take comfort in that fact when I'm around 3 of my lady friends and grieve a bit when there are 7 or more.

I'm the one. So don't touch me, and not because I'm going to have flashbacks and make a scene or even make you uncomfortable.

But I will remember.

I will always remember that you are the type of person who doesn't respect space, atoms, or auras and that will set off a teeny-tiny red flag in my head that you are the type of person who tests people to see what you can get away with.

You will be marked as a person in my presence to always be mindful of, that you cannot be 100% trusted with my full person, and that some level of myself has to remain guarded and alert around you.

And that, in itself is just fricking exhausting.

Can't you let it be?