mostly nonsense

CLXXXIV

“I need you right now”
“Why? Because I’m a port in a storm?”
“No, because I feel like shit and you care about me”

I expect nothing, and everything is my fault- my mistake, my problem, my responsibility, my blunder, my slip, my sin. You sit, because you’ll be gone by the time I wake.

“How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” and you laugh when my voice cracks, but I can feel you land heavily on the bed, even through my surely fatal headache.

Next comes the goodbye, the well-wishing for my health, and the kiss on the forehead- or, where my forehead should be. You snake your hand beneath the double layer of hoodies, two plush comforters, and a dinosaur-print quilt (stolen from my brother’s bed and folded in half), and declare my fever “horrible”. I know, I want to croak, but then I’m shivering and tugging at the blankets, luring myself back to the refuge of sleep.

I am disgusting, I am sleeping, I am useless, and you have a plane to catch; This is the part of the story where you leave, except-

Except your weight remains comfortingly solid, invading my self-imposed quarantine, and you begin to speak. A story, and you’re telling me about being a child, visiting your aunt: how she always made you feel welcome, even with four other kids to take care of, how she introduced you to rock music and let you use the pool whenever you’d ask. Your voice echoes through my cotton cave, but it’s not obtrusive or unwelcome so much as calming.

I expect nothing, and everything is my fault, but you are telling me a fairytale, singing me an Aerosmith song with half-misremembered lyrics, rubbing my back through fifteen fabric layers. This is the part of the story where you leave, but not until I’ve fallen asleep feeling like maybe (of course, of course) you’ll come back.