thorns and other maladies

52

you left me
and i can't sleep anymore.
it's not that i miss you
—i hate the way you'd steal the blanket
and let me shiver all night
or how you'd sleep in so late
that i'd have to leave
when you finally roused—
but rather that i miss you
—you used to tuck me in
tell me i filled the empty spaces
and i'd wake up the next morning
and watch your sleeping form
wondering how i was so lucky—
and now i just can't sleep anymore
so much so
that the stars and i
are so well acquainted
i know them all by name.
they ask me about you
and all i can say is
he loved me once
when there's still so much to say
as if our love was just
a line in a poem
and not a whole collection
or a stroke of a paint brush
and not the whole picture
but to say all of it
would be too much now.
so i tell the stars
he loved me once
and pretend that's all there is.
pretend that is enough for me.
hope that eventually
it will be.

—insomnia