F r i s s o n

It starts with a note
just one
slipping into the room
like a match struck in the dark.
You don’t see it,
you feel it:
a thin silver thread
pulling tight beneath your skin.

Then the melody rises,
and something in you rises with it
the hairs on your arms
lifting as if they’ve been called to attention,
as if the music has reached out
and brushed its fingertips
along your nerves.

Frisson
that sudden, bright shiver
that runs the length of you
like a whispered secret.
A tingling bloom,
a soft lightning,
a reminder that your senses
still know how to wake
all at once.

It’s the chord that hits
exactly where your memories live,
the harmony that opens a door
you didn’t realize was closed.
It’s the swell of strings
that feels like a tide rising,
the drumbeat that echoes
in the hollow of your ribs
as if answering something ancient.

And for a moment
just a breath
you’re suspended
between sound and silence,
between the world you’re standing in
and the one the music is building
around you.

A tremor,
a spark,
a quiet astonishment
that’s frisson.
The body remembering
that wonder is physical,
that awe has a pulse,
that sometimes
a single song
can lift every hair on your arms
and make you feel
more alive
than you did a heartbeat ago.