A Little Better?

Wordless Distance (not sure about the title, still)

“His snoring keeps me awake,”
She told anyone who asked
Why she slept on the couch.
To be physically separate,
Was less bitter
Than to consent to the
Wordless, untouched distance
In the bed.

The rote, the habitual, divided them.
They’d say the words,
“Love you.” “Love you too.”
But sometimes she couldn’t.
There were fewer one-sided
Conversations and conflicts.
She stopped talking at him.
She stopped asking for him,
For his interest.
“I think it,” she’d heard him say
Too much. It was too much.

It’s wrong to be so lonely,
She would think.
She wondered, never aloud,
What she would have to give up
If she could take it all back now.
What would she lose
If she just gave it back?

There would be steps to take,
Arrangements to make,
Other lives changed, damaged,
Crushed.
She would be called thoughtless,
misguided, indifferent.
Selfish.
“All this just because he snores.”