Intimacy

There’s a moment—just before touch—that the air thickens, and everything becomes still, like the world holds its breath, waiting. It’s in that moment, the moment where anticipation hums between two bodies, that intimacy begins. A fleeting glance, a hand hovering just above skin, the warmth of someone standing too close, but not close enough. Intimacy, I used to think, was simple. It was the look held a beat too long, the breath shared in the stillness of a room, the quiet way two people move in sync without ever speaking. But what if it’s more than that? What if intimacy is not in the touch, but in the ache for it?

There’s a pull, a craving to dissolve into someone, to press yourself so close that there’s no telling where you end and they begin. The desire to be known—not just in the way bodies fit together but in the way minds unfold, thoughts entangle. I’ve felt that desire, burning in the space between a shared look or a lingering word, like something unsaid but desperately felt. But intimacy is more than the sensation of closeness. It’s what lies just beneath the surface, what we’re afraid to show, the parts we keep hidden even when our bodies are bare.

I’ve mistaken the heat of a moment for something deeper, thinking that the way fingers trace lines on skin, or how a breath catches when lips meet, was intimacy. There’s that rush, that sweet, dizzying rush, when someone’s hand finds the small of your back, and your body leans in without thinking. It feels like everything. Like you’ve found it—the thing you’ve been chasing. But the real problem comes when the moment passes, when the room cools, and the space between you stretches back out, and you wonder: did we ever really know each other at all?

I’ve been close—so close that I thought I could feel their heartbeat under my skin, like their pulse was my own. And yet, as the night ended and the sun came creeping through the curtains, I felt the distance return. The closeness had been an illusion, a warmth that only masked the coldness underneath. Because when we speak of intimacy, we’re not just talking about bodies. We’re talking about the way someone can slip into your thoughts, into the quietest corners of your mind, where you’ve hidden things even from yourself. But how often do we really allow that? How often do we open ourselves, truly, and let someone else see what we’ve tucked away?

It’s easier to hide behind the pretense of closeness. Easier to let someone kiss your neck, to let their hands wander, to let the warmth of their skin press into yours, than to let them in, truly in. There’s a vulnerability in undressing your soul, in allowing someone to see not just the curves of your body, but the jagged edges of your mind. I’ve spent so much time believing that intimacy was something you could feel on the surface, something that came with the weight of another person’s body against yours. But that’s not intimacy. That’s proximity.

Intimacy is the way your heart skips a beat when they say your name in the dark. It’s the way you find yourself lost in the way their hand rests on your knee, a gesture so small, but it makes your skin tingle like they’re holding a piece of you, a piece you didn’t know you were offering. It’s the unspoken things—the ones you dare not say aloud, for fear they’ll vanish. The way they look at you like they’ve seen you, really seen you, and you don’t know whether to feel exposed or grateful. But what if intimacy isn’t in being seen, but in seeing them, in knowing that you’re both holding something back? Maybe that’s the most intimate thing of all—the shared knowledge that there’s always something more, something unsaid, something just out of reach.

And then there’s the pull of it, the desire to close that gap, to cross that line, to finally break through the barrier between you. I’ve wanted it so badly that it hurt, that my chest tightened with the weight of it. But when we get close, truly close, we pull back, don’t we? We retreat, afraid of what we’ll find if we keep going. Because to know someone fully, to let them know you—that’s terrifying. It’s easier to stay in the realm of the physical, where touches can be explained away, where desire is simple and fleeting. The real intimacy is in the way someone’s absence lingers, the way you can still feel them long after they’ve gone. It’s in the ache that remains, the unanswered questions, the what-ifs that haunt you in the silence of your own mind.

So, what is intimacy, really? Maybe it’s not the closeness we seek but the yearning for it—the way we lean into the distance between us, knowing we can never truly close it. Maybe intimacy isn’t about dissolving into someone else, but about standing just close enough to feel their warmth, knowing that you will always be two separate bodies, two separate minds, with just enough space between to keep the desire alive.

Maybe that’s the secret. We never understand intimacy because the moment we do, it vanishes. It’s the tension, the wanting, the never-quite-knowing that makes it what it is. And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.