She lay there next to him, but a million miles away on their king-sized bed. Through the years, the beds got bigger to keep up with the gap growing between them. He didn’t know about the expanding ditch between them, but she was getting sucked into its darkness. She was shivering in the cold and their relationship was an old sweater slowly unraveling into a ball of yarn.
It only took a few nights to break the habit, but once they stopped sleeping together wrapped in each other’s arms, there was no going back.
When their relationship first began, they slept anywhere as long as they were able to entangle their appendages and sigh a collective breath. They slept deeply, growing closer together with each exhale. But over the years, and with the fights, they started to sleep further and further apart. On vacations they would get a king-sized bed and essentially be sleeping in separate beds.
He didn’t notice. Or else he did—and he let it go. “Are you OK, sweetheart?” he would say. “I’m fine,” she would answer with her mouth only. He knew she was lying, but didn’t want to deal with the bullshit. She was no different.
He falls asleep shortly after sex. Nothing like passing out after a day of sun, a few beers, and a smoke. Top the night off with a blowjob sundae and he’s down for the count while she’s left pulsing. A desire unsatiated; a flood of insensible emotions overwhelm her. She’s left waiting for the payoff. She was always waiting for the payoff to come. Pun intended.
Harder, faster—more intense. She thought if she could just feel it more; but she had grown too callous. She felt only motions, no emotions. She was thirsty for the same elixir that only she was left pouring.
It felt so far gone: all the possibility, the innocence, the belief in something greater that was there at the beginning. Where was this romance that now feels like leftover dust from a tornado? A fall from romance is like a perfect swan dive directly into a belly flop.
When she was on the offensive, he was on the defensive. And then they switched roles. They were both in love with the memories, but couldn’t sustain the intensity. Existing in this relationship alone yet together, it felt like there was no thread long enough to stretch across this canyon.
There were signs. Then were words, actions, screams. There were discussions, promises, failed resolutions. But she has to resign to the cruelty of a relationship you can’t fix.
She knew it was their last trip together. She takes out her notebook and documents in non-poetic poetry a souvenir of the evening:
The king sized bed
reminds her how far away they are.
Existing in the same plane—
but different horizons.
I spread out but do not touch him.
He spreads out, and misses me.
We exist together separately;
sleeping alone in a bed for two.
There was a time we were united;
there was a time it was impossible …
to be so near and not touch.
But now we lay like strangers.
Alone in paradise.
Once again,
in a king sized bed.
She sits under a thatched roof that shades her from the wind. The full moon is over her shoulder, peeking at the words spilling out from within her soul. The dippers and their galaxies, under the Mexican sky—encompass everything and make her feel tiny. Alone she sits—separate from the world, holding a truth that’s only hers.
She glances up towards the balcony for some recognition, for solidarity, for a sign of hope. But she sees only the blackness of nightfall.
