i was thinking about your pillow
when i looked at the snow
and thought 'the problem with the pillow
is that the pillow is mostly slept on,
but rarely slept with'
what a poor pillow,
dealing with the sweat and grit,
the blood and the tears-
and it is not any pillow
(for pillows are not interchangable)
that pillow has a history,
that pillow has been written on a hundred times
that pillow has been washed
but you can't take experience out of a pillow
pillows remember the tears,
pillows remember when the two heads
were better than one-
the pillow remembers being stripped
the pillow remembers sleeping around
(just for the first semester, it was a naieve time)
the pillow remembers the beds
the beds that were nice,
and those that were hard, callous,
unfeeling
the pillow remembers the music in the morning
the sweeping of waves along the ocean
(both the real, and the unreal)
(both the ones that were dreamed about,
and the waves that crashed incessantly
in the still room three stories up, a mile
from the beach, with no noise besides the boy
beside, sleeping and dreaming love
in uncertain proportions)

that pillow is just a pillow,
but what if it was a metaphor?
we, we who float six inches above
the ground dreaming, and walk a foot below
the ground when our thoughts are sad,
we-
we are the poets, and princesses,
and runners that attribute meaning to things
we find close to one another.
and in the electric midnight air (or 1 am air,
or 2 am air,
I really don't know when it was,
but I was beside you (the boy you will
remember) and didn't care)
then, in that air,
I said the word was charged-
the name was charged-
it was filled with meaning
the pillow is more than a pillow
it is a metaphor,
a stand in for someone I believe in
a person who got slept on
but not with,
and I put my hand under the pillow
that pillow, not any pillow,
the one with the story,
and the mystery, and the narrative
I cannot read,
and I whisper into the pillow
and cry into it,
'you are beutiful,
you are dawn,
you are the first snowflake,
the electricity in a neon sign,
you are happiness,
when my head is on you,'

and i will sleep with forever,
but never on,
I believe.