Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart

by Courtney Peppernell

You’ll Just Know You’ll see them in everything. Suddenly the sun reflecting off your windshield glows the same way as their smile. The supermarket reminds you of that Sunday morning they tried to make you pancakes and got flour all over the floor. The blanket at the foot of your bed suddenly becomes a substitute when they’re not there, and every single time, it’s not nearly warm enough. Their eyes become galaxies to get lost in. You think they’re the funniest, smartest, most beautiful person you have ever met. They drive you crazy in the best way. You’re always drunk on the thought of them. Suddenly their body becomes a map, a diagram, a place to create pathways with your own fingertips. You’ll treat this as a delicate rite of passage, as though someone is letting you touch gold. You’re an artist who wants to draw across their canvas. You’re an explorer who wants to discover all the places your body fits with theirs. Each hug feels like it’s not long enough. When they fold into you. When they hang off every word you say. You smell them everywhere. In your bedsheets, on your clothes, as soon as they walk into the room. They smell like pine oak in the spring, like firewood in the winter, like rain on a summer night. The way they look at you. The way they spell and say your name. You know their coffee order, you know what days they do laundry because they’ll call you to borrow clothes. You know their favorite color, what makes them laugh, what turns them on, what books they’l...