sometimes you don't really love someone

until you know what it's like to wake up one day

thinking you'll get to see their smile and hear their voice

and you breathe in. with that sinking feeling in your chest

because you've realized that they won't be beside you

you've realized you're alone and you won't hear their voice

see their smile or touch them again

because they're gone from you

and you run your hand where they used to lie beside you

feeling the sheets (were they always so rough? you thought they were soft.

and maybe once upon a time those sheets were soft when they held a body

but that body is gone gone gone)

and you can sit there in bed with your legs growing numb

knowing that your only one is out there laughing with someone else

kissing, touching, loving someone else

and getting coffee at that cafe they loved so much and maybe reading a book

and it kills you because you don't know where they are

or if they're thinking of you like you think of them at 3 am when you can't sleep

or if they have no trouble sleeping at all, because they're not in the same pain

and you've been struggling to get out of bed these past few days

and today you won't get out of bed. you'll just lie there and think

about how things used to be and how they are now and how it *****

and you'll torture yourself with thoughts like this, but you can't help it

you'll just lie there, immobile. drowning in your own thoughts and emotions

and you'd give anything to not feel anything but you feel everything

except the feel of your lovers skin because you don't have a lover anymore

you're just going day to day, barely making it through

but god help you if one day you decide you can't make it through

and you finally get the courage to cut a little deeper

or finally load the gun and pull the trigger

and you'll go without a note, because they didn't leave a note

but it'd be stupid to go like that, you aren't that bad off

are you? you don't know anymore

that feeling in your chest is your anchor in your sea of troubles

and inside of floating you're sinking, why don't you just swim?

you roll over in your bed, the mattress creaking and you inhale

breathing in the lingering scent on the pillow

how many months has it been since they were there?

how many months since you were able to breathe them in?

and you lie there for a while, pretending you were snuggled close

to the only other person who could understand what you were thinking

and read what your eyes screamed so loudly

all you have is a photograph, the edges crinkled and soft

because you've kept in your pocket so every time your hands

got a little lonely you could reach in and hold them one more time

you hadn't thought they were serious when they said they'd be gone

in the morning, but here you are

alone

in the morning

**breathe out.