Your lungs sound different when you drift off to a place that I will never be able to join you in.
Maybe we are walking together somewhere, or drinking coffee in a shop that pieces of your brain glued together; a place that only exists in the world that I will never be able to join you in.
"No gifts, remember?"
I remember.
This isn't a gift.
It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.
You can only peek into it's cracked door, only briefly catch murmurs as you lean your head as closely to the white-washed door as you possibly can.
When I was a child I lied on my back at the top of the staircase that your boys now scoot down from on their bottoms.
I would lay there and listen to my parents talk to one another about things I shouldn't have heard. Secrets, I guess.
I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to stay awake and hear the soft tones of my mother's voice. Many times I couldn't even decipher words from the long prose she spoke, but I knew it was lovely still.
I always fell asleep.
You stir ever so often under the sheets. I wonder what wakes you.
Is it a nightmare? Or is it a dream so beautiful, your body is fighting to stay a little longer, in that place that I will never be able to join you in?
I'm going to paint our kitchen a pale yellow. That's how I always pictured it would be. I wanted a yellow kitchen with you so badly. I wanted a yellow kitchen, fresh wildflowers in the window and Sunday morning coffee.
I wanted to fight with you, about anything. About sugar maybe, or the type of milk you drank straight from the carton.
I dreamed of the simple things, like shared grocery lists and book collections.
Was The Great Gatsby mine, or yours?
We would laugh and shrug because it wouldn't matter anymore.
Yours and mine would be the same.
You're rolling over more frequently now. Dawn is stirring with you.
This isn't a gift.
It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.
How did we get here, sleeper?
How did we manage the climb to the top? Are we at the top? Are we somewhere in the middle?
The middle seems like a good spot to sit and hang out for awhile.
Like a good spot to plop down with sandwiches and talk about nothing.
Maybe just a good spot to enjoy sharing this space with one another for a short time.
What's it like in the place that I will never be able to join you in? Am I in a cream dress in the woods? Are we laughing? Do you spin me around and hop over fallen trees?
You're letting one leg breathe from the sheets now.
This chapter has been brief, lover. This one of school supplies and evening walks. This one of sharing. I share your toothbrush at times and you pretend to not enjoy that we're so comfortable.Your eyes have always been honest with me, though.
Before this mid-climbing spot of sharing air, you told me that you would always meet me there, in that place that you will never be able to join me in.
I can't meet you there either, in that place I will never be able to join you in.
It is a place that we can not share together.
We go there and we toss. We turn. We let our legs breathe from the sheets.
We go to this place that we can not share and we still search for the other.
We search for the pale yellow kitchen.
We search for the shared book collections, the shared coffee creamer.
We search for anything to share in this place that we can never join one another in.
You are about to wake. You're becoming more vocal now.
I think we always search for a space to share with one another; I think we always have been searching and always will.
This isn't a gift.
It's a stream of consciousness, it's my own place that you will never be able to join me in.
You're awake.
