lie awake

When we lie, we lie.

Lying next to you, I counted down the days when I wouldn't be. A vacant space between the sheets is better than a blank stare. Hold back my hair, please. My eyes need to see, my face needs to breathe.

We terminate the sounds that displease our surroundings. The way you say you like me better when I sit up straight, the way I say you'd be better off with a cardboard cut-out. But we don't cut out the sounds. We bring in more sounds to blanket (like a razor like a record like a reading of a book we'll both fizzle out on halfway through).

You are so pure. I still see your hands at night and imagine them as a child's.

If there's a ceremony before bedtime, let's perform it. Rituals, like flossing and setting an alarm, console. The soles of your feet feel rough, but they are there and that's what counts. And we count sheep, but instead of sheep we count ways to say goodbye. There's the train station and the doorway and the sudden rainstorm. We fall asleep before counting to an emergency room. We've said our farewells in too many rooms anyway. We sleep.

There are dreams of falling into an oblivion. We can't take off running because we never hit the ground. I still see a paradise in your hands, but I can't reach them, I can't reach them.

It takes all I have to shake myself awake.