Tug Tug Tug
The vanilla crème color of our flannel sheets rest easy against your left cheek. You are curled towards me, as I write on the cotton clean white of my notebook. The vanilla pillowcase cradles my notebook. Your pink cheeks are the color of ripe peaches — perfect you are. Your eyes dance in tiny flutters — your eyelashes — the equator between your lids. Your soft brown hair looks dark today, depending on the light, it is sometimes red in its hues.
Ben & Teddy
The afternoon is passing slowly today. We are caught in this sandwich of light and time. I dare not take a bite. I only wish to watch it on my plate. I can hear your father shuffling papers across the hall in our shared office space. I look up from the bed in our bedroom and see the reds and blues of his Patriots hat.
There is a connection between the three of us that is ethereal, like the string of an invisible thread that tugs at each of us and when we’re all together, we feel whole. But when we are apart, even if it’s fifteen feet, like this morning, with your father in the art room and both of us across the hall in the bedroom, we feel the tug tug tug of this string. You’ll never be able to cut it loose, at least, I believe.
I don’t want this string to ever strangle you or pull you back from somewhere else. I am allowing myself some time to process this thought — that someday you won’t be so close to me — you may go off to college, you may move away. This string for me will always tug tug tug. For now, I squeal in quiet delight at the thought of you right here, right now. Your fingers resting against the soft downy comfort of our flannel sheets, your warmth multiplied by my own body heat.
