For One, circa November ‘11

Coming back to my bed at night is like coming home to an old friend. One who greets me warmly, invites me inside, and doesn’t mind how long or short my stay each time is, or that I crawl in sometimes so late at night, or crawl out sometimes so early in the morning, making a fuss about the whole thing.

I’m a messy sleeper in the bed these days. I whine late at night and early in the morning.I sleep murmur. I sleep thrash. I talk and mutter and curve my body around the side of the mattress like a ready, tired, lonely, little spoon.

But the bed puts up with it. The bed puts up with me dragging the damn comforter cover that houses a once-full -fluffy-new comforter now spilling-out-fluff-from-it’s-worn-seams comforter in and out and back in again.

And I put up with it’s lonely, empty other side piled up by pillows instead; or the creaks, cracks and breaks in the frame, and the yearning for the space to be filled by two instead of one again.

It’s a give and take, old friends.