My Couch is Alive and She Loves You Too

There's a portal in my couch that swallows me whole.

Or a gateway.

Or a teleportation station.

Or my couch is actually a witch in disguise.

Casting spells on my eyes.

Telling me what I see.

Telling me when to sleep.

Whispering sweet lullabies as my leaky faucet eyes drain -

Uncontrollably dowsing the room.

The witch collects my leaky faucet tears and holds them in jars.

She puts them under the couch and watches them sparkle in the moonlight.

I think she turns them into nightlights.

A borealis array of blues and black and purples and skin that's too soft.

Fuzzy skin of a peach, but all over my body.

Wrapping my wrists too tight -

Until I can't feel my fingertips.

Numb and buzzing and not strong enough to hold a fork,

I sit with my hands in my lap and massage my own wrists,

Trying to help the blood flow back to my fingertips,

Trying to feel anything other than the pin-prickling tingle of sleepy feet.

My feet don't really work anymore anyway.

Maybe they could just go numb instead.

I think that's what my couch wants.

She wants me to stay.

She wraps me up in dog hair and dreams-too-real-to-be-true.

She tells me everything is right here in front of me but makes me feel half-dead.

The witch in my couch in my living room met me in 2020.

Pandemic couch.

Velvet couch.

Rusty, gold, yellow, softest-skin-ever, couch that saved me from sitting on hardwood floors with my back propped up against door jams.

She told me I was pregnant.

She held me and whispered: "It's okay, it's okay."

No one prepares you to be completely alone in the moment your life changes -

When you were taught your whole life that the man of your dreams would be there with you.

She wrapped her arms around me and

My arms wrapped around my husky,

His blue and hazel eyes watching, waiting.

Stopping anyone from getting too close to his new baby in my belly.

This rusty couch where I held my breath, hoping the shards of regret would work their way out as my body rejected them.

They never did.

I guess they’re integral to the fabric of my being.

The witch in my couch opened her arms, softened and cradled my body when I started to die,

When you stopped moving.

Your huskies wouldn’t let me stop moving too.

Poking me with their noses,

Howling toward the ceiling.

Telling her to let me go.

Most days, I can’t get out of the hole that swallows my body.

I’ve gained 15 pounds since August.

My couch holds me and brushes kisses across my ears.

“I don’t feel like talking today.”

My couch whispers: “Talk to me instead - saying nothing is talking too.”

My body aches.

My couch softens and opens the door.

“I’m so tired.”

“It’s okay to rest,” she says.

“I miss my baby.”

My couch murmurs: “Me too.”

And wraps me in blankets, holding my shaking body, slowly lifting my chin and pointing my blurry eyes.

Collecting my tears in jars.

Showing me the walls.

I stare and wonder how a baby deserves a life of pain.

A life of death sentences.

Slowly the wall opens and my witch in my couch lowers me in.

She tells me not to worry.

I drift.

I sway.

I sleep and I'm awake.

In and out of worlds.

I see you.

I hold you.

I kiss you.

I keep you.

And my couch does too.

“This can’t be real, there’s no way this is real, I’ll wake up soon and I’ll see you.”

She softly says: “You know that’s not true.”

And cradles my head in the corners of her arms.

“I miss my baby,” I slowly breathe as the portal opens up to meet me.

And my couch murmurs: “Me too.”