They hadn't touched for months,
Years, it seemed.
(Like how minutes seem like eternities between the sheets, a week away feels like two lifetimes and some).
Their initial nights of frolicking, passion and sleeping into bliss eventually turned into nights
Where he would come home intoxicated by his own breath to find
Her asleep on her side of the bed
Leaving his stone cold, not a single crease.
Those nights - waybackwhen - were Sweet and Sharp
Like the coffee liqueur he now familiarized himself with. Soon the curves of glass were more familiar to him than her body.
She found relief in something else.
Those habits burned from when she was seventeen,
Now returning at age thirty-three.
The blades, too, were
Sweet and Sharp.
And one night after he positioned himself carefully under the duvet,
The weehoursofnight later,
He saw the woman he once knew.
Almost forgetting that he shared a bed.
And yet.
That wasn't what made his heart drop down to his knees,
Flooding his mind with, "oh dear God no please"
Those lonely little lines lacerating her skin
Only just visible under her shirt's hem.
So peaceful in her sleep.
But he shakes her awake,
Her delirious confusion
Followed by heartache
She realized he'd seen.
Before she could pull her shirt down or hide her shame,
He grabbed her so gently and let free his pain.
"I didn't realize - "
"Neither did I."
They cried together to sleep that night. Tasting those tears, Sweet and Sharp on their tongues after such Bitter and Blurred nights.
And for a very long time, that was the only way they could still feel each other's presence. |
Submission Name: bothering.
