She called me from downstairs.
There's some gear, medical stuff
outside, two cases, a midwife's
instruments, why put them here?

Don't touch them, you never know
these days, perhaps they're from next
door. She's a midwife, so I hear.
I'll ask them to identify.

They checked and foud her car unlocked.
But why left for us to find?
A joke? A cruel comment,
mocking us who nest no more.

I called them our divorce beds
Every night after we cuddled and couldn't
longer stand the claustophobic cover of our sheets
we found ourselves in seperate beds

divorce beds.

You slept on sheets covered in pink owls.
I slept on teal sheets covered in stars.
We were a twin bedroom dream.

Taking full advantage of a single dorm room
Our nights consisted of heavy whispers
Trains that fled our lungs and vocal chords
in search of the next station

Before sleep hit our barren chests
We'd lay awake and listen to our breaths
Sometimes mine turned into snores.
You hated that

Snores reminded you of your father
Something about expanded vocal chords
creating a symphony at night
scared you

Your father never married
Mine found safetey in a women
in a polka dotted dress
Who could transform his symphony of snores
Into an orchestra of love

Your father was bound by his only son
His nights spent in distress
Echoed a chorus of tears

Until he met Melinda
He called her beautiful
Words that hadn't left his lips since his son emerged into the world
A women full of desires and hopes
too large to fit underneath fitted sheets

You told me about her.
The way your father described the outline of her lips
parallel to the lines of stars that filled the sky
Her freckles constellations of undiscovered stars
Some nights our divorce beds
Felt too close for comfort, and
you would disspear in the morning
Claiming there was monsters in the walls
and that my snores were your fathers

You loved your father
A man who kept his word
Even when his life wedged tradegy into his veins
and his heart wanted to collapse into the inside of his chest
Your love for that man
could never be compared to anything

My father
Foud his life strewn apart into carefully
strung pieces of literature.
Words lulling women into the secrept compartments of his home
With authors no one had even heard of
Except himself.

The only advice my father only said was
“Two wrongs don't make a right”
But it is so hard
When you are throwing rocks at my glass house of confidence
I would shout

Shattered by your slurrs
Skipped rocks don't even miss
the walls that were carefully sculpted
into beautiful stained glass

My father was an artist
I told you about how his conductor
was a women with lips blood red
and kisses so sweet they could make his canvas bleed

You laughed
The differences between our fathers
Two men who believed in two different things
Two men who were in a constant search
for something other than the normal routine

As you laughed underneath your **** pink owl sheets
You told me to hurry up and fall asleep
You felt better listening to my breathing pattern lullabyes

Sometimes when those lullabyes turn heavy
and my chest rattles beneath my teal starred sheets

Please don't leave.
Don't flee.
There is too much hope living under our
divorce beds.