It’s a flat of springs, a weave of cotton, a puff of air, a bubble of water. Sometimes it folds, deflates, or falls out of a wall.  

Ours is burnt orange and taupe, can be digitally changed for comfort, and is the heart of our home. 

Our bed.

Reign in your immaturity for a second and I’ll tell you why I love it.

It was the place I landed as a teenager, all gangly legs and crimped hair, talking with my mom. My mind would wander in as many directions as the stitching on her outdated comforter while she answered my deepest question: Am I worth your time?

It was where I’d hide when moonlight hit the side of my dresser, void of the outline of branches and I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was certainly coming through the window for me.

It’s what cradled my fevering, aching body, and what I rioted against during my toddler years.

And it’s just as valuable to me now.

It got me through three pregnancies.

It is a trampoline when I’m not looking.

It’s where our family assembles into a pile of arms and legs and stuffed animal friends that get us through the night, to embark on a handful of adventures before bedtime.

It’s the place my daughter tells me, with jagged trails of tears on her cheeks, of the shame she’s been carrying over how she treated some of her friends last year in school.

It’s where my son comes face to face with me on his daddy’s pillow and I remember that it wasn’t so long ago he was sucking his thumb.

Tonight it’s the place where delicate pigtail curls hover over sun-grazed shoulders, where a sequence of high and low-pitched voices dripping with childhood are followed by screaming laughs. It’s where there is an unending performance of somersaults, and tickling that will make you lose your breath.

It’s where the only kid at home is queen, and I don’t want this night to end.