In The Darkness, Look For Stars

I’m not sure how or why I always end up here. It’s 4 in the morning and it’s another sleepless night where I end up on my porch talking to the moon about you. As I look up at the beautiful night sky covered in stars I wonder if you’re looking up thinking of me too. Do I bother your thoughts disrupting your sleep as much as you do mine? Its nights like these that are the hardest. The ones where your absence hits my heart causing this pain I’ve never felt before. You know, the one where your heart is throbbing, your tears are slowly falling down your face and the only comfort are the soft winds slowly brushing away my hair.

As I’m sitting here, I can’t help but close my eyes and picture the last time they laid their gaze on you. When you looked at me with your hopeful eyes before I walked away breaking every piece of my heart I had, I almost second-guessed my decision. I quickly open them as the gush of tears keeps falling but your face won’t go away. You always loved to bother me at nights and I guess your memory wants to continue that routine. I’ve tried everything to escape you. I’ve tried putting a bandage over every wound, over every scar with anything I could think of but you always bleed through. I go out and force myself to be around crowds in hopes that your face will disappear. Instead I find myself in a room full of people and I still look for your smile gesturing me to come to you. Crowds never help because it’s just a bunch of empty faces I don’t know and I can’t help but to always look for yours. Distractions are truly overrated. They don’t help instead they make me miss you more and our life together. I miss the little things that people never think about like how you used to be half asleep but still opened your eyes every morning to watch me get ready. I miss coming home to you and talking about my day even if they were a whole bunch of nothings. I find myself lying down at nights looking over at where you used to lay wondering about what I would talk to you about if you were here.

I finally get the courage to get up and go inside so I can force myself to escape you and finally go to sleep but we all know that isn’t going to happen, is it? That would be too easy, too perfect and you would never let me have that. As I crawl into bed, particularly on my “side” I look over to where you used to lay and stare at me. How you would smile at me blabbering about every possible thought that ran my head as I laid next to you and stroked the stubble on your face. But tonight like many nights like this, I’ll just see you in my dreams. Its nights like these that are the most difficult. The nights where I miss your touch, as you pull me closer to hold me before I drift off in my dream world. The times you’d play with my hair as I spoke complete nonsense in my sleepiness. Do you think of me the way I think of you? Do you wonder how I sleep at night like I wonder how you sleep without me? Do you feel the emptiness as you lay in bed feeling as if the whole world has abandoned you? Is there a cold stillness like in the winter nights that seeps in to your bones as your only company for the night?

We humans are such strange creatures. We are always attracted and addicted to what sucks the soul  out of us slowly eating away all the edges of life in us. I find myself constantly grabbing my phone and going to your contact. I just stare at your name at least twice an hour but never mustering the courage to call. Telling myself it’s not a good idea. You’re probably wondering how I stop myself, well sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I call and you don’t pick up which gives me relief because we all know the dark spiral I’d fall down if I were to hear your voice. Do you do this on purpose? During day it’s easy to keep myself distracted but it’s like you know at night I miss your warmth and you pop in my thoughts. You were always the night owl and now your memories haunt me towards your old habits. Even the drive home knowing I no longer come home to you chokes me up before I even walk through the doors. My mind is constantly racing and here I am watching TV shows we used to watch together late at night finding any escape I can find so I don’t think of you.

Being alone is tougher than people put it out to be. It’s weird not coming home to your smile, or you talking to me about our plans for dinner or the upcoming weekend. It’s upsetting when I think about how I’m sick laying in bed and you’re not here to hand me a Kleenex or run to me every time I cough or sneeze. You know I always try to find any ray of light in the darkness but it took me awhile to find any light in this barren home without you. But in this loneliness I have been finding parts of myself I buried years ago because it was all consumed by you. In the silence, I was thrown in an uncomfortable state of mind I had never faced but there she was waiting for me as if she knew this whole time I would come. The me I never knew because I never had the opportunity. The me that I am discovering everyday in this barren heart. The me that you don’t have and does not have your imprint all over it. It’s in my loneliness that I am coming to terms with who I am and finding what serves me the most. This peace that comes over you like the satisfaction you receive at the end of a long, difficult journey.

I get it, you don’t want to be alone but is laying next to any body that will lay next to you really fill that void. We are so used to using others, in most cases as broken as us to heal all the cracks and wounds someone else has left. I know you have a hole in your heart that you are looking to fill regardless of who and what your doing to fill it. Does that truly work or do you find yourself lying at night wondering where they are and what they’re doing?   No one said it was going to be easy or a smooth journey but it’s one we all must take in order to get to the place we should be. Using others to avoid issues, emotions and a solution to a problem you don’t want to face yourself is a temporary solution. I know you feel fine today but what if a few months down the line you find yourself sitting up at night and all the wounds you’ve covered tear open forcing you to feel every emotion you’ve hidden with the warmth of a body? Find the strength to open your wounds, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past and make peace with them.

It’s in the dark, unbearable silence that we learn to find the light in order for us to heal to our hearts content. Look for your ray of light because that is the only way your journey of healing can begin.

Love,