Somebody to sleep with

Anyone else just want some-

Body in the sheets?

I don’t mean somebody to sleep with

I mean somebody to sleep

With

You could both be

Wearing chastity belts

or

On antidepressants

or

Asexual

Or you could both be horndogs like me

Look,

All I’m saying is sex can be cool

And sex can be fun

But have you ever just literally slept with someone?

Conking out next to somebody you trust is the bomb

At first their night sounds,

--Breaths and murmurs--

May disrupt your

Rhythm

But after a while

Four lungs will play a two part harmony, back to back against the cold and the dark

You’ll feel each other’s heartbeats, feel each other’s humidity

Smell the salt on each other’s skin

And you’ll breath each other in,

And here’s the thing

I don’t have a study or a source

To prove it

But I damn well know:

Humans evolved to sleep this way

The whole thing used to be communal

Bodies existed long before we ever invented pillows

Or blankets

The rodents and tailed things,

The trembling little mammals

At the roots of our evolutionary tree

And too, early primates

A little higher up in the branches

—Our primordial grandparents—

They damn well knew it too: to sleep curled up beside an other

Was the better!

Protection

Security

Against claws and teeth

Against the dangers that prowled our ancestral forests

Yes there’s safety in numbers, but

There’s

Also

Comfort

So, who has it better?

The rat in a burrow, in the dirt, his warm fur pressed up against another body in his nest—

Or the brilliant, modern human who tosses and turns

For loneliness

On a bed full of polyester and warm fluff?

Eh,

What I'm saying is: I don’t know shit.

But maybe

We modern folks,

Have a reason to be jealous

Of early hominins!

Those guys knew what was up

They had community and caves

We have the social cleavers

Of electric distraction

Of desperation

Of urgency

And of bills

They had closeness and we have distance

What’s the answer?

Is there one?

Let the psychologists figure it out, but don't let them tell me their findings.

At least not while I’m sleeping alone