Glow

We lie in bed

My husband and I

Breathing side by side

In the dark

He breathes out

And I breathe in

I breathe him in

Whatever he’s putting out

I breathe in

We lie in bed

He leans on his side

Offers me his back

Broad and strange

And his thumb scrolls through his phone

I feel it ripple in my bones

His gestures echo through me

Like a soulquake

And I hear him sigh

And the Moon is gone

The only light in this song

Is a stale pale glow

Lighting up the sheets

A stale pale glow

From a screen of sickly sweets

We don’t sleep well

My husband and I

Our circadian rhythms corrupted

By the sallow blue glow of a screen

Sucking our souls and melatonin

All of my dreams have been stolen

There’s a glass of dusty water on his nightstand

It has stood there for five days

He hasn’t touched it

He doesn’t take care of himself

He is paralyzed

By a stale pale glow

Lighting up the sheets

A stale pale glow

Flattening our heartbeats

God I wish he would scream

I wish he would break down on the bed

I wish we would fight

Tear at our hair

Let the bits and bytes

Dissolve in the night

It would be all right

What if you just missed something?

What if you let something go?

Just for the night

Would that be all right?

Oh I swear it’d be the same

They are all just motes of dust

We are all motes of dust

Nothing is as vital as it seems

Tragedies, catastrophes

Nightmares, horrors, heartbreaks, extremes

All these suffering souls

That you cannot control

And you invite them all

In our bed?

Well what if I’m not big enough

To take in so much pain?

It beats on my brain

I am going insane

Right here, in this bed, next to you

You’d see it if you weren’t so lost

In the stale pale glow

The stale pale glow

It’d be fun if we were kids

With flashlights

Telling each other our secrets

In our linen cave

Oh babe, where did you go?

Oh babe, where did you go?

Oh babe, where did you go?