i let my head roll to the left, then to the right. i breathed in deeply; exhaled slowly. i considered shifting positions, but decided against it. it wasn't worth the noise or the risk of waking my roommate. i closed my eyes tightly, but when your face was all that filled my view, i flicked them open again. i tried making out faces in the ceiling, but it was too dark. i had made sure no modicum of light could disrupt my insatiable desire to just sleep. every night i went through the trouble of shutting down my entire computer and entertainment system, so no blinking monitors or power strips could annoy. on a slow day in shop class i had covered two pieces of cardboard with aluminum foil, and every night i would place them snugly within the borders of my bedroom window. i would run a strip of duct tape around the edges, top, and bottom of my bedroom door, should my roommate come home in the night and flick on the hall light. i was prepared for sleep in every way, but it would never come. i don't know how to explain it any other way than to say you took the night away from me.
in days gone by, i used to be excellent at sleeping. i could fall asleep in under two minutes, and i could remain in the same position for nearly eight hours. my dreams were vivid and colorful. my sleep was always entertaining while restful. my bed and i shared a phenomenal relationship. i had never before let another person in, and i refused to sleep anywhere else. but then you came along.
we'd been dating four months already; i felt it was high time to let you spend the night. i remember i was already under the covers when you exited the bathroom in nothing but a tight cotton camisole and an adorably sexy pair of boyish x-men panties. i pulled back the soft, down comforter. i remembered the way the matress sunk beneath your delicate weight. your smooth legs slid down the length of the two sheets, brushing against the hairs on my legs, causing everything from my toes to my navel to begin tingling. you lulled me to sleep that night with the whispers of your thoughts. they flowed from your sweet, pink lips like spring water; washing my mind with their purity. i slept in the arms of angels that night.
the following night, i didn't even have to ask you to stay. you slid in beneath the sheets behind me and wrapped your slender arms around my chest. i played with your knuckles in the dark of the room, wishing it were light so i could count the fine hairs on each one. i breathed in the scent of your palm and smelled the same soap my mother had always bought when i was a kid. instead of my falice growing, my heart swelled and i wondered if that might be a taste of what it felt like to love.
as time went on, i grew even more in love with you in dreams than i did in the waking hours. that is not to say i didn't love you indelibly in the daylight; it only means the night was an ecstatic and euphoric time for me. i went so far as to invite you to nap beside me. you laughed, but never gave in. your life was too busy for that. i should have known better.
it was two entire years before you grew bored of sleeping with me. or maybe you were bored by some other facet of our relationship. whatever it was that drew you out the door, you followed it and never looked back. ever since that first night when all i could feel was your absence, i haven't been able to sleep. every night since that dreadful one, i have found myself lying flat on my back, begging some unseen gods to help me find relief. all my attempts have been unsuccessful.
i tried to imagine you there with me again, but it was such a vain mockery of my memories of us, i stopped. some nights, when sleep almost caught up to me, i felt the phantom sensation amputees sometimes speak of. my bed would sink on your side, and my leg hairs stood on end. my whole countenance went rigid and i couldn't get the feeling to leave. such sweet torment i felt those nights as i tossed and turned beneath the now-foreign sheets that adorned my sacrificial bed.
