i watch you sleep.
eyes are cloudless, fearless.
not darting from place to place time to time
guilt to guilt
as mine do.
if they close at all.
i should be as you are
safe to sleep on shoulders
knowing i will get you there safely,
not leave you to wake some foreign station
alone and maimed.
shoulders can be a place to lean my head
but that head rarely rests-
what ifs and if only i.
at night, i close all closets until i hear the latch catch- click -
attach the child gates too
-as if a rapist would stop
"hm. that child resistant
piece of knee-high
wood
is too much trouble.
this house may go unharmed."
you sleep and i think.
i picture years and days and how these things go.
words and seams ripped from my chest
in seconds by fathers, mothers, lovers, friends.
how i always disappoint
yanked by my hemline
from that pedestal i never wished to climb.
or all the lies that grow seething
from pores of well-meaning
until you own up in a one night's threshing.
leaving would hurt less.
your dreams seem so unmarred
your face an angels, sleeping
thinking love is same tomorrow
and more.
"and less and less" i whisper
the mores of yesterdays and tomorrows
rising in my throat choking
drowning.
for one wish i'd curl beside you
sink heavy into safe arms
fading rushing thoughts and pulse to slow-drum peace.
to truly sleep there beside you
angel in my own right
may take more than the time we have.
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