It’s the way we sleep. Years of familiarity has tied me to you in this strangely comfortable way. When you lie next to me, I cannot but reach out of your arm and hold just that much to me. Just you arm, or your hand or a finger. Some bit of your skin, the baby soft smell. I wonder at times how a man can smell that way. But that smell is my security blanket. I won’t tell you how it feels to not have that around me. Sleeping next to anyone else I don’t reach out. With you – it is as natural as breathing. No matter how angry I am, no matter what passed. When you lie next to me, sleeping, I have to hold on to you.
I know no matter how I tuck my feet in between yours, or entwine our fingers- you won’t find it strange. You will just make place for me. Warm my freezing toes. Put your hand casually on me. Sometimes you have pushed me away, in anger. But then when you sleep, my head is back on your arm.
I don’t know how else to sleep.
I never learnt.