the hardest part
about missing you
is knowing
I shouldn't.

yet here I am,
up all night
aching and thinking of you
and you're sound asleep.

your dreams aren't filled
with the faces of a lover
who made promises
that were not kept.
(but mine were.)

you don't wake in the morning
wanting to return to your dreams
just to see my face
or hear my voice.
(but I do.)

you don't go about your day
wondering where I am
or what I'm up to
or if I'm thinking of you.
(but I always am.)

and at night
when you lay down to sleep
you don't wish
you were lying right next to me.
(nighttime is the loneliest, you know.)

but I think the hardest part
about missing you
is not dreaming of you,
or thinking of you,
or wishing you were here.

the hardest part
is knowing you made your choices
and I wasn't one of them.

on your first date you learn she takes her coffee
cooler than the starless sky
and by the end of the night you learn
she likes her showers hotter than the seventh sun
stepping out from the tub with her skin scrubbed
a scarlet hue that demands to be kissed until
dusk turns to dawn before your sleepless eyes

you wonder why she sweeps her hair to the side
after she says goodbye in the morning
why she seems so ******* guarded
all of the time
but you never ask
because you are afraid she may answer

she says she's never been in an accident
and you incorrectly assume
she is referring to a car
you swear up and down that she ought to be by now
because of the fashion in which she drives
like a madman
she says she doesn't believe in speed limits
or limits of any kind for that matter
she likes to get to where she's going and
she likes to get there fast
she's the kind of girl who doesn't believe in
taking things slow
maybe because she doesn't know how
or maybe because she doesn't want to know

she told me she loved me three weeks
before we got together by means of
mediocre poetry and a smile that
at the time
I couldn't quite understand

she says she's never been in an accident
and you incorrectly assume
she isn't referring to
all of the time
she spent
away
from
you