Sigh Poem by Amberlee Carter

I imagined
rain casting bows
cross your sleep struck neck,
you tossed and sighed
heavy skin to bitter winter-
Your shoulders slender and spent,
you held up the world
and it gave you exhaustion.

The days were long then,
they came at us with jagged teeth
disguised behind the make-up of spring-

We were worn in those days,
so we made love to invoke sleep-
and in the wake
you'd recite stories and poems
for effect -
I remember:
you were always on adventure,
delving into foreign lands
where only your mind could take you-
and I was always going home,
tied to an umbilical cord and hair
that sprung from the roots of mother-

Then after you extinguished
the day's final cigarette,
you'd roll over and extinguish yourself-

and while I'd lay limp and lonely at your side,
I realized:
there is nothing you can do in this life,
no commitment or companionship you could offer
that would free me
-
so I turn from the sound
of your lungs heaving,
to the twilight just beyond
and find myself
in the spaces between silence and stars-

In these tortured thoughts
I'd rest, eyes unblinking and focused
on the deep purple of universe-
I know
sleep cannot comfort dreamers.