The jihad of hands on sleeping hips

The heat of her back pressed against me was enough to keep me up at night, which what kind of person is it that would call this a denial of the way a life should go. It’s one of those things you have to hate about yourself after awhile, the way being happy felt something like an old and rusty anchor. I put an arm around her and scooted closer, got the smell of her skin by pressing my face into her shoulder and kissing it a little here and there. She didn’t stir.

What was I even at war with all the time? The self-assurance of chemical reactions and neurons firing all over the place, maybe. The things whispered back and forth, axon to axon. This is what you deserve. This is your identity. The mitochondrial masses cast their vote, the democracy of feeling lousy for no good reason.

I got out of bed and paced around, got a glass of water, stood in the unlit kitchen drinking it and staring at the one glow-in-the-dark magnet from our trip out to that cave system, how it was so wet and muggy underground. This is the reality of being alive. All that storytelling, all those moments that can be shaped into some kind of meaning, and then there’s this one. Narrative from a junk drawer life.

She called my name from the bedroom, and I set my glass down and went back in there. She half-asked what I was doing, and I said nothing, just awake for no good reason. She smiled and reached up to touch my arm. I put my hand on her hair. It made me feel like maybe I would make it through.