Redacted

When we first met, I slept on a mattress on the floor. Perfectly picked out for its balance between hard and soft. New. 

The same set up would not be good enough for us. For her. She deserves better I thought. 

I bought us a bed. Hard wood, dark stained and expensive. 

Worthy of her warm resting body. Of our innumerable unions in the early hours of those cold mornings. 

We each chose our sides. To sleep on. To reveal to each other. 

Sometimes as I lay in the darkness I look over to the emptiness that was her side and I remember the emptiness that lay in her eyes. Misconstrued for love. 

And the heavy heart I carried all those years after she left. 

It's weight indented on that once new mattress like gravity in time-space. 

And her side, still new. 

Like she was never there.