While I work, he sleeps with his feet against mine, warms me in the icy room with the heat of his body. I can feel him dreaming, running down some impossible hallway, skimming the top of a rolling green hill on a sunswept day in March, walking beside the lake in November.

We spend too much time together.

We stifle in this too-small apartment, rub each other raw with proximity. On bad days I close the door and clench myself against his incoherent yelling a fierce wordless sound as he screams at people passing our door toward the elevator, walking by on the sidewalk. Other days I rage myself hoarse and he runs away, huddles himself small in the bedroom.

We have been hurt before, know we will be hurt again.

Overcaring, we touch too much, comfort too aggressively. He pushes his face into mine as I cry, I hold him still when he shakes with fury. We do not want to touch, or be touched, but most of all we long for stillness.