Work Text:
Red sheets, blood red sateen.
Cool and soft, I would dive into your bed excitedly. I loved those sheets.
The space we inhabited between them was so warm.
You told me you could touch my skin forever, and your rough hands made me feel small.
“Turn out the lights.”
When I woke in the morning, a sliver of sunlight had slipped through the curtains, running across my thighs.
I could have lied in that bed forever, not speaking, smoking cigarettes.
“Those are going to kill you.”
You told me that you have never felt so alive, or so scared.
I told you that you were feeling love for the first time, and that it was a mistake.
You laughed and covered my mouth with your hand.
“No more talking.”
You counted the scars on my arms, the bruises on my back.
I wrote my name over and over on the palms of your hands.
You carved your initials in my chest.
“W. S.”
In that bed time didn’t exist.
We never got hungry or thirsty, I never slept but was never fully awake.
Pulling the sheet up over my head; hiding in that dark red world, just floating.
“I won’t, can’t die. I’ll just disappear.”