In your room, I fell asleep in your clothes
on your bed before you finished studying.
The lights were on and the music was
loud. Something I picked out. I must have
been more tired than I thought after
showering in your shower and brushing my
hair with your brush and doing my
homework on your computer. I thought
you wanted me to stay but you barely
touched me when you came to bed. You
only moved me under the covers and
asked if I would switch places. Maybe it’s
good. Maybe we touch too much. But I like
your touch. I don’t want to need it though. I
don’t want to need you. So it scares me
that you didn’t want to touch me but it
scares me more how sad it made me feel.
Enough that today I want to be alone and
I’m not in a hurry to get home. I think you
want to understand why my music is so
angry and why I get so sad sometimes but
you don’t. If you have standards, I’m afraid
you’ll soon realize I don’t meet them. Then
not even touching me will be fun anymore.
It’s happened before. I can’t explain it, it’s
just that I’m lost and now the smell of my
own hair reminds me of you. I wish I could
keep them forever, the rooms like yours,
that I make my own. But now I think I know
better so it has to be enough just for a
while.
Image Credit: ©Unsplash
MEET THE AUTHOR:
BETH MULCAHY (she/her), a gen X-er from Michigan, lives in Ohio where she works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. She writes poetry, fiction, memoir and dreams of visiting Scotland. She currently has work in Bombfire Literary Magazine and forthcoming in Trouvaille Review, Potato Soup Journal and Anti-Heroin Chic.