Closer

I turn my back to you, so we can sleep.
You remember sleep.
I think I remember sleep.
We are not supposed to be here like this.
We are supposed to sleep apart.
I promised, yet I invited myself into this bed.

So I turn my back on you.
Separate, apart, keeping my promise.
My heart knows things my mind is oblivious to.
I know that your heart beats. I can hear it.
It lulls me. It comforts me. It’s there two feet away, close enough, but apart.

I turn my back, so I will stop looking at you, stop feeling you there.
Good Lord I need to sleep.
I turned my back and I nudge myself so close to the edge that the mattress cords have to hold me onto the bed.

I don’t have the need of your body today.
I have the need of your heart.
But you are stiff, still, eyes closed. You are not sleeping. You are hiding.
The same way a child that wants to be found hides.
You are scared of this closeness of two feet just like me.
But we need it just as much as we are scared of it.

Time passes. Eventually we sleep…

Days pass, the sun comes up on goes down on our lives.
A multitude of things come together in just a day or two.
Your world spins and I am quiet. Watching and listening from afar, my focus so intense. I hear so many things in these moments but all that information is not what I am listening for. I don’t know how things are and I need to know. I strain and hear finally I hear it, your heart. Slow and comforting I hear it across the miles we are now apart.
I know there is a tumult in your head but listen, it’s there as steady as the sun, your heart.
Can you hear mine?

More days and we are together again…promises forgotten, wanting sleep and at the same time not wanting to miss anything.

I turn my back, so I will stop looking at you, stop feeling you there.
Good Lord we need to sleep.
I turned my back and I nudge myself so close and realize that arms askew and legs awry we are a big mess in the middle of the bed. Mattress cords might as well be in Siberia.
Falling into a dream and listening to your heart so close,
It lulls me. It comforts me. We are no longer scared of this distance of inches
We are closer. Now I hear it all day, not only when the wind blows but always.
Sleep comes and stays now. No illusions.