A lamp hums ever so slightly next to my bed. The sound resonates around the room and through my head. The silence in this house is deafening. Alone with my heartbeat and this lamp, I dream of a future where going to bed doesn’t bring the dread it currently inflicts upon me. I crave the comfort of another under these sheets. The warmth emanating from their body as we drift into the comfort of sleep. The comfort of presence is a sense I took for granted and I have yet to fully accept the absence of it. Where once was love and life, now lies an empty pillow and a feeling of loneliness.

I wish there were words to impart this feeling onto others so they might understand, but even there, I’m alone. The words written through these keys are a slight reprieve from the torment of the words circulating through my mind. It seems as though the solution to my problems, seem to want to avoid me as much as I want to avoid being alone. Attempts to fill the empty space in my bed have been met with the opposite. Not due to a lack of options, but due to my own expectations. I want more than a temporary fix, I want what’s real and lasting. In a world where temporary seems to be an everlasting concept, I refuse to fall prey to the normalcy of it.

She checks her phone and sees his name

A rush of heat burns quick through narrow veins

She’ll suppress the feeling so strong

For her current state is wrong

He sends love through another note

Praying she’ll respond in kind to what he wrote

Hours will go by with no reply

His loneliness an empty pillow he can’t deny

She contemplates what to him, she’ll say

Poking fun at his effort every day

She leaves him just enough to keep him on the hook

No idea the ticket to hell she’s made him book

He never takes her words at their face

Contemplating the nuance of every letter’s case

Anxiety, as another note is read

Hoping desperately to fill the space in bed

She allows and compliments his advances

Dreaming what if, to her love’s romances

She’ll dance through words with subtle inflection

No idea to their relationship’s aimless direction

His heart flutters with every buzz

Writing back in seconds like he always does

He knows it never lasts long and takes what she’ll give

The feeling is enough and he knows he’ll live

His text comes in a second too late

She’s brought out of the dream she’s come to hate

At a conclusion to let him down she’ll arrive

She destroys the moment, tells him he’ll survive

His happy buzz turns to sorrow

He’ll continue to be alone until tomorrow

She puts him back into her purse

For one more day, she’ll make him feel worse