Welcome to My Imaginarium

You’re gone now but I still feel you with me.  I feel you the way I do the things I was born with. I feel you in what I no longer feel. Absence radiating presence. 

You know more than anyone, that I’ve always been a restless sleeper, tossing and turning like a stone on an ocean’s shore. Each tumble devoured my share sheets and most of your share too. But, sure as the tide and strong as its’ current, I’d be met with a resistance strong enough to unravel me like a human sleeping bag and claiming back what was rightfully yours.  This was one of the first things I missed.  I felt you not pulling harder than you ever had pulled. 

Three days after you passed I fell asleep for the first time.   My side of the bed seemed to sag to the floor without you to balance it out.  The sheets stayed colder for longer without you.  I used to listen to you breathe as I fell asleep.  Each exhale, another sheep over the fence.  I never got past 17.  

Everything is is more here now that you aren’t.  The radiator buzzes so loud I could swear it shakes the bed.  My heart beats in my ear like a second hand ticking.  I still haven’t found a position where I don’t feel my pulse beating through my skin and I always get past 17. 

I woke up that first night to you not pulling.  A mixture of guilt and habit rolled me and all your sheets back out. It didn’t feel right without you there to take them back. Wrapping stolen gifts with no one there to open them.   

The next few nights I made sure to tuck the sheets on your side in as firmly as I could.  It felt good to have something next to me using and pulling your share.  Yes, even if it was just a box spring and a mattress. The ever dimming reflections of you last longer when I am weary and there’s something there to play your part. The sinking feeling takes a little longer to set in. There’s a few more breathes before the gasping. A fleeting moment of feeling like everything is all right,  everything is where it is meant to be swallows me up before I’m regurgitated into reality. Fetal position. Clawing, aching agony.

Each night, without fail, the covers would at some point come loose and pull free from the mouth of the bed.  Our bed.  I tried staples. I tried tape. I tried anchoring the sheets under the feet of the frame but nothing held for too long.  The stronger the grip, the more violent the awakening. Pulling hand over fist just to feel you tugging on the other end.  Eventually, every night I would win and there would be nothing left to fight back. I would think of myself.

It wasn’t long after you left me that I found myself spending more time claiming your sheets for you than sleeping.  The more I claimed, the more your sheets reminded me of you, and the more all my ploys and desperate attempts reminded me of me.  

Nothing I fastened could hold on long enough to you.  My big, clumsy, box spring hands too tired and too old to hold onto you, my precious sheets.

Then, one evening I gave up on all the staples and tape, needles and strings. The war of the sheets was over. I gathered up all the battle remnants and tossed them, once and forever to your side. I don’t know why but I removed all of my clothes and laid naked in the middle of the bed. Our bed. My body was one half less yours than before and one half more mine than I had ever wanted. I felt half as light and twice as heavy.

The smooth surface of the mattress was cold.  The skin around my nipples pulled tight and bubbled.  The radiator fell silent.  I felt your warmth in that cold for the first time since you had left. Every second you weren’t pulling the sheets from my grasp reminded me of you pulling the sheets from my grasp.  I pretended my breathes were yours and didn’t get past 17.

In time your absence became your presence. The cold of our naked mattress against my naked sagging skin was your warmth.  The nothing sheets that I wasn’t stealing from you, not wrapped tightly around me and not in my hands became just the opposite. My inhales were your exhales.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  One sheep, two.  The negative of your life lived with me.

Sleep slowly began to creep in between us, so I fought it until it finally went away.  I was never really asleep but never really awake.  I was just counting your breathes, that were mine, that were sheep. Day in and day out.  I am naked, cold and counting.  But I am no longer alone. I feel you in what I no longer feel.