While She Slept

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have someone in my bed for more than a few hours at a time but since you were too drunk to drive, I let you stay the night. Your soft frame caroused around my pillow top mattress like a dog walking itself in circles, looking for the perfect place to take a ****. I was starting to sober up, prior hours becoming more transparent in hindsight. I couldn’t sleep. You finally settled and began to softly agitate my neck with deep, and steady breaths. I rose, checked my wallet and put it my gun’s lock box. The steel tasted like blood; somehow soothing. We were there together like that for what seemed like an hour, at the very least, totally indifferent to one another, still sweating from what was actually a pretty spectacular session of love making. Unfortunately once again, I was stuck with myself. Your body, for a while, helped me escape. Being inside something so perfect, so complete and full of grace made me feel alive again. And then I came; for those few, brilliant moments, the lines between life and death were blurred. Nothing mattered. The same thought went through my mind as my teeth sat upon the unforgiving certainty of the effect of pulling the three pound trigger cradled by my forefinger. And then you sighed. It sounded like poetry. The calm of your dream state swam through my bones and curled up, just like that dog and laid still in my rib cage. I sat the gun down and shook the blur loose. I could feel the world spin in that moment, I could feel the constancy. I was more comfortable with it, life. I didn’t think about you leaving when the sun rose, or sneaking out so I didn’t have to have an awkward morning. I just laid there, and thought about what sort of dream would make an Angel sigh. -James Kelley 2014, All rights reserved.