It's dark. The sun has long disappeared and no new words will be spoken. I lay beside you, we run through different ways to say the same things. We both know sleep would be more productive, but these nights are so few and far between that I'll tell you a story for the eleventh time, or read you a poem that you've read before, talking just to fill the silence. Even when you beg for sleep, I'm slow to concede. The next morning is most often awful because I have somewhere to be, and so do you, which means goodbyes all around and three weeks or more will pass between us speaking face to face, which isn't impossible but still isn't easy, and I'm sorry for keeping you awake. But I don't think you totally hate my senseless eternal whispers, because they creep through the silence that comes with distance. I just want you to know that I'll run out of time before I run out of words. "Goodnight," I'll whisper, before feeling you roll your eyes in the darkness. And then I'll remember a story I don't think I've told you...