kerberozzz

[kerberozzz]

It’s quiet tonight. The kind of quiet that would bring me peace if only the memory of you didn’t splay itself behind my eyelids, float it’s way through my optic nerves, snake it’s way down my throat squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until I’m choking, coughing out bits of you between my teeth and chewing it back up and swallowing it all down. If only the memory wouldn’t curl in on itself and pound, pound, pound on the back of my skull like the crashing waves slamming against the shoreline. Infinite and oh-so-insignificant. And I am not seeing the road mapped out in front of me. I am not looking at the red lights or the green lights or the street lamps or the headlamps of lonely cars passing in the night. I am staring at you. I am staring at the person I remember and not the stranger I know you are, and I can’t help myself. I can’t help it. I reach and I see you. I see you nervously picking at your nails and twirling your hair. I see you flickering between indecision and confidence. I see you fluttering through your closet looking for new clothes that won’t appear for the new job you might not get while I lounge across your bed. I reach and I reach and I reach, and the dull ache in my chest caves in on itself. There is an empty space where these memories should be but aren’t as the weight of the realization comes that I do not know you, that you are not the memories I still have. And I can’t help it. My lips whisper words you’ll never hear, and I’ll never say again. “I miss you.”