Goodmorning

I wake with a direction.  She does not like to lay in bed with me anymore and just watch shadows push oblong monochromes across wall, painting, ceiling, closet wall.  Pre rain is making me miss the ocean in the second I have had to feel it mist my face, arms, legs.  She comes into the kitchen behind me, makes me coffee.  Why doesn’t anyone drink coffee anymore?

The bed is intolerable to her without me in it.  I could sleep on a pile of someone else’s dirty clothes, zippers, tags, rivets and all.  There is an indictment there I have never been fully guilty of, never felt completely responsible for.  She is sad most mornings.  My mind dances at the irrationality of being able to make her laugh and smile without removing the hurt my words, other peoples silence, have made of the thing that used to be bright and hopeful in side of her. 

Inside, in the game room, the pizza they got right, hidden in the box on the floor, has ants on it, three, I think they are spice crumbles but know better and bend to see touching carefully.

“jesus christ, the fucking ants found my pizza”

“how did they get in here” she asks.  I check the window, its closed.  The last two nights have been cooler that the last 90. 

“I don’t know” I say.  She comes in and hands me my coffee, goes down the hall and pee’s in the bathroom without closing the door.  That took two years.  I stand and listen to the gift.  What she is sharing.  How close we have become.  How we may be that one flesh the people from ancient times referred to their version of marriage as. 

I cringe at the thought of being as responsible for my own happiness and peace as I feel for her.  What if I needed to give myself, care for myself, love myself, adore myself as much as I need to do those things to and for her.  I think of all of the times it was ok for me to take half eaten pizza from the trash can, sleep in abandoned buildings, hold scorn, swallow abuse.  Now I imagine me saying, thinking that its ok for her to do the same, imagine it as though I stood beside her, my beautiful woman, my queen of everything, my own heart I would strangle the world for, hand her the dirty coat to use as a blanket and point to the corner of the room, let the man call her stupid and look down, point down to the ground where she should look while he says it, evince the shame, show her that pattern of self-doubt, hold her hands behind herself as much as I have my own while darkness wears a face, walks before us, reaches out..

“inimicable” I say.

“I don’t know what that means” she says.

“I don’t either, I just like the sound”