I can’t sleep again tonight. Too busy tossing and turning and desperately trying to squeeze out the voices in my head. What would you say to me now, I wonder, if you were still here? What words would you whisper into the darkness?
But you’re not.
The ache of your absence weighs heavy, and I miss you. The way the tips of your fingers traced themselves around the tension in my neck, gently caressing the knots of stress that I had ferreted away into my body. Why is it that the only way to get rid of the thoughts is to compress them into fists, to squash them down so small that they can slip under my nerves and into my muscles in the vain hope that one day they can be pounded out from my body?
And even that is not enough.
I’m terrified of going to bed now, of making that journey upstairs. Already resigned to the hours of clenched thoughts and clenched bones, the toss and the turn and the ever-increasing panic as the hours go by. I find endless tasks to complete to avoid the inevitable. Too afraid of the thoughts that always, always come.
I miss you.
It hurts most at night, I think. That tight ball lodging itself in my thoughts once more. Fists pounding against my chest, but somehow from the inside out. If they can just pound hard enough then maybe, just maybe, one day they might break free from this cage of empty promises and broken hearts. Desperate to break free from the shards of broken glass that surround them. Too often slicing at the skin, the blood runs deep here, warm and flowing. It should bring me comfort. Instead, all I can think about is drowning. Too afraid to open my mouth to gasp for air because I am afraid of what I might let in. And afraid of what I might lose. What if it was the one important strand amongst the madness that escaped like a waft of smoke disappearing into the night? What if I let myself forget the shape of you?
Sorry I haven’t written for a while. I’ve been too afraid of what might happen when I put pen to paper. Words of you escaping before I’ve even had time to think of the consequences. I do not want to write about you, not anymore, not ever.
And yet here we are. The thoughts have slipped, ink glistening like blood in the moonlight.
There will be nothing more to write about. I will not try. I refuse to sit down and give myself the time, because I know deep down, I still have only words of you. Forever lost in the shape of your body and the warmth of your hands.
