There is a moment in every relationship where you have to make a choice. You can keep your walls up, stay safe, stay protected, and never let anyone close enough to really hurt you. Or you can take a breath and let them in. All the way in. Knowing full well they might destroy you.
“Before We Touch” is about that terrifying moment right before you let your guard down.
“It is the scariest thing in the world,” Tom Bruggemann says. “Letting someone see the real you. Not the version you present to the world. The actual, messy, broken, real version.”
The song lives in the anticipation. That electric, anxious space between wanting someone and being afraid of what happens when you actually have them. Because once you cross that line, you cannot uncross it. Once someone knows you, they know you.
Have you ever stood at the edge of something real and felt your heart pounding in your chest? Not from excitement, but from fear? The fear of being truly known?
Tom has stood at that edge more times than he can count. Sometimes he jumped. Sometimes he did not. “Before We Touch” is the song about standing there, looking over, and trying to decide if the fall is worth it.
Spoiler: it usually is.