And night dawns
And I repeat
After me
Again.
I do not need
Your lungs and their
Quiet heaving
To sleep.
I do not need
Your thoughts coming
Rumbling from your lips
To sleep.
I do not need
Your fingers combing,
Or your palms against me
Roaming,
Or
Your feet shadowing mine,
Like ghosts,
Intangible bridges entwined
(You're taller than me),
To sleep.
I do not need,
I do not need,
I do not need
Your restless feet.
I do not need
Your perfect skull
To curl my fingers around
To sleep.
I do not need
To reach back and
Find hands already there
To sleep.
I do not need
Those lullabies
Sung to me through shifts
And sighs,
Your tossing,
Turning,
Rhythm
Churning
Gentle turbulence
Against
My still-in-comparison side
To sleep.
To go to bloody sleep.
I do not need,
I do not need,
I do not need
Something that was never mine to keep.
I do not need
Your body here.
No grasps
Or whispers in my ear
Or tucking hair behind that ear
Or wandering my neck-
Oh, dear..
I do not need these empty sheets-
These tangling sheets
Is what I mean.
These strangling sheets.
They lie all wrong, this new nothing
In between
Me and the wall.
The space, I mean,
Is all.
I do not need
To be surrounded
By body heat and sheets
And your skin's scent
To sleep.
I do not need,
I do not need,
I do not need..
To sleep.
And morning falls
Like weary eyelids
Over skies, did
You come back yet?
That's ok.
I repeat after me-
I do not need,
I do
Not
Need,
I do not need
Your lungs to breathe.
\\\
