My limbs are electric,
reaching, clinging, wanting
wanton for the press of
her foreign flesh.

As much as I had feared
my desire was a raw nerve,
feeling pleasure and pain
indistinguishable.

After,
our limbs twisted together in fraught knots,
exhausted.
Exhausted of the wait,
exhausted of the fight to stay apart,
magnets calling for each other
from opposite poles, finally
collapsed on each other.
Exhausted from the wicked curiosity
of being unknown to each other,
of hiding, not lying, but
not telling the truth.
And we are swiftly boated by sleep
that refuses to abstain any longer.

I startle,
groping for her
finding foreign arms threaded and
breasts pressed against me.
A room tilted in the wrong direction,
a bed giving way beneath me that
feels like anything but home.
“Are you ok?”
I ask, patting her down.
She pulls me under her and
we are tunneled to sleep again.

I startle,
hands fumbling again
finding unknown everywhere.
Light from the bathroom reminds me
I am not home.
“Are you ok?”
I ask again.
“I’m fine. You’re ok,”
she says and tugs me down.

I startle,
my weak arms fueled by fear,
feeling for my bearings.
I don’t hear my pets licking, snoring or
scratching.
I don’t see the red bars of the alarm clock
reminding me it’s fucking late.
I don’t taste her chapstick on my lips,
can’t smell her lotion, hair conditioner,
face cream and deodorant swirling under
my nose.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m ok.”
She’s annoyed now
for the sixth time or eight time I’ve woken her,
my heart seized,
no breath in my chest,
blind, fumbling for anything familiar,
solid ground.
under a rug ripped out.

This is not home.
She is not her.
And I
am not me.

– S.E. Chandler

Author’s Note: This poem came from in-class work and was originally called “Changed Beds.” I was previously married for 18 years, finally parting ways with my ex to start a family. This poem captures the thrill and panic of my first night in a foreign bed with a new lover. Recalling the repeated times I jerked awake trying to make sense of my situation, I realized that it wasn’t just the place and person that had changed from the past half of my life. I had also become someone else in abandoning my marriage to fully evolve into the person, potential mom, and spouse I wanted to be.