What My Husband Says When He’s Asleep

My husband

Is the kindest man

You will ever meet

When he’s

Awake

When he sleeps

He says things

I’ve taken

To going downstairs

And sleeping on the couch

Bringing my little alarm clock with me

So that I can wake up

Before he does

And return to bed

I do this

Because what he says

Unnerves me?

I’m ashamed to say it

But it does

I know that it’s subconscious

That it doesn’t mean anything

But it also doesn’t come

From nowhere

It can’t

Somewhere in his mind

Are the most vile suggestions

And the most degrading

Desires

I would lay there

When we were first married

And think that he was playing
Some sort of terrible joke with me

But the time

The only time

I mentioned it to him

At the breakfast table

He got stern with me

For the first time

For the very first time

In our marriage

He told me never to speak

Of something

He didn’t want to talk

About how he’d speak

In his sleep

It bothered him

I could tell
And so I dropped the subject

And inquired as to how

His new job

At my father’s company

Was going

For him

In his sleep

He speaks of murdering my father

And me

And of setting the beautiful

Office building downtown

On fire

When he’s awake

He endears himself

To my father

And has become known

As the son

My parents never had

My mother even makes him

His favorite dish of hers

Once a month

When we go over

For Sunday dinner

And she pats the back of his head

And calls him ‘my dear’

In his sleep

He ridicules her

Calls her a foolish woman

Who should be sliced open

And left to rot in a yard

I’m sorry to use these words

And these graphic images

I know how upsetting they can be

They upset me as well

I listened to them for a few days

And then I took

To sneaking downstairs

And sleeping them

I know it’s not a solution

To the problem

But I don’t even know

What the problem is

I brought it up

With the family physician

And he told me

That I was most likely

Making too much out of it

But I noticed his face

Take on the strangest look

Before he dismissed

My concerns

He told me

There was nothing to worry about
And that I was doing my marriage harm

By refusing to sleep next to my husband

Just because he muttered a few nonsensical things

While asleep

What will happen
When we have children

He asked me

I have no idea

But I need my sleep

And so does my husband

He has to get up

Very early for work

And I wouldn’t want him

Getting a bad night’s rest

He’s always so happy

I would never want to find out

What he’d be like

If he wasn’t

Happy