300 Thread Count Canyon

When I keep myself awake at night
it is to fill this waiting space
a crater left in the hollow of my arms
where your form once rested.

As unmistakable as the feeling of a
wanton pebble sifting around in my shoe-
When you moved I felt you
even in the dark
even through the woolen thickness of slumber.

And I noticed months ago
when you started pulling away
inching away slowly
pressing yourself flat against the farthest wall.

Fear tore through me like a horse loose on the highway
That you would rather embrace the slow crawl of transparent window
than the heartbeat lodged in my chest
the softness of labored breath
and the cradle of my body against you.

The shift of your retreating weight
and the sigh of excuses you left in your wake
was one clamoring hoof beat after another.
I can be oblivious when I want to
but I am no idiot girl
I could hear the stampede
long before the horses arrived.

I spent so many nights trailing my fingers
across the softness of your spine
measuring the space left between us
as it opened up-
a 300 thread count canyon
I didn't know how to cross anymore
than to roll over
and press my spine to yours
like a pair of itchy cricket legs.

Ambulance wail lullabies and the awkward heat
hissing from our parted bodies
made the nights spent at your side
each more painful than the last.

But it's not the endless dreams of you
I am avoiding.
It's not the smell of you lodged deep
in my pillows still that causes me to want to drag
the bed into the nearest field and set to blazes.

It is the memory of your face looming before my eyelids
every morning when I would wake up before you
and see that your head
still rested so close to mine.
Close enough to reach out and kiss you
in the early morning sunlight.

I would spook like a nervous one trick pony
and stare at your face gone slack
no fissured brow or vacant glances to sidestep.
I kept these moments secret
and drifted back into sleep
so you could think you were still the one
that always woke up first.

Pinned these images under the bed legs
like worn horseshoes
and hoped that soon
I would still feel rested when I woke up
and you would no longer be there.

But around this time every night
I remember when we fit ourselves together
the strength of a steel bit
clutched between speeding teeth
and hugged barrel race curves
until dawn pried our eyelids loose
and shook the sleep from our eyes.