It starts in my fingertips, and I don’t even realize it’s there. But it starts in my fingertips, from the way I brush them over your cheek which is already pink.

Then its in my wrists, and they crack when I reach to hold your hand, and I feel sore, but maybe I just don’t know why.

And now it’s in my elbow, from the empty feeling in my arms when I reach to hug you.

But then its in my shoulders and my neck, and it feels heavy, like I’m Atlas, with the weight of the world on my shoulders, or small but important, a pinched nerve. And it’s in my neck because I keep turning it to make sure you’re still there.

And suddenly it’s in my spine, tingling up and down, and I’m all connected, and its there, and it leaves me raw, like I’ve been left in the cold for too long again.

So it’s in my stomach, filling up with iron and disbelief and all the things that you put there and all the things that I let you leave, and the nauseous feeling of not knowing.

And then just like that it’s coming up and coming out, on the tip of my tongue. Yes, it’s itching the tip of my tongue, like the way you used to bite it, and I feel stretched out and tied up and aching to say it, the one word that is in every part of me.

The word.

Doubt.