The potency of the sheets beneath

a tangled mess of body heat
Something I thought I’d never see
Let alone live to taste

Mouth open, eyes closed
Wet stains or breathy doze
Eyes that blur so you don’t see
The more obvious side of me

Maybe I’d prefer the chain
between myself and bed again
without the need to walk around
without the need for blocked-out sound

A change of need and visions
An alteration of chemical desire
For what dreaded hand would
fan my fire?

Sheets stained soft with
the warmth of tangible and tasteable presence
but also with a million and a hundred and one
unkempt and dirty tears

It is all at once a sanctuary and a prison
A place where I fight and a place where I give in
I don’t think I could begin to understand
The complicated simplicity
of
a bed.