How It Felt to Understand

You hear the talk of
Butterflies and snakes and
Lightning realisations and
The stirrings of lust, deep down,
Tinged with something harder than that.
Or you hear of slow burners
On oil ships that cross the oceans
In slow waves of steadiness.
But that is not how it was for me:
The symptoms never came.
My stomach didn’t twist,
My heart stayed stable,
And my days carried on as they were
Without her.
But I knew, all the same.
The smile in the club, her
Hand in mine through the crowd and
The fact she held on longer than needed.
Her arm around my waist (for the
Same purpose as the hands)
And the ruffle of my hair,
The tug on my clothes,
As we talked and swapped observations
Of appearances.
And the text once she was gone,
Saying she didn’t want to.
I had no butterflies, no snakes,
No flash-burn in the dark.
But I had a smile of my own, and
I lacked the strength to stop it.