Distance is painful.
And I don’t mean the type that you can overcome
With a bus ticket and flight
Across the pacific
I mean
Achingly silent cups of coffee
The ones where you can hear the whispers that won’t
(or can’t)
Leave lips
For fear of blocking a road
That is already flooded

My Mother always said that
We should never make promises we can’t keep
So maybe that’s why
I was shocked when you stopped loving me
And when you stopped smiling when you saw my key twist in the lock
And when you stopped waking up on Saturday mornings
Twenty minutes early
To make the pancakes that I love.
When gone were the days when your eyes
Took my breath away
In the most pleasant way
And now it just feels like
You’re cutting off the air in my windpipe.
So maybe that’s why
I sit awake on a Wednesday morning with your picture
Crumpled in my hands
It’s four in the morning
And tiredness hasn’t hit me yet
But when it does,
My god it punches.