Awake. 3:11.
I wish again.
For more hours with you.

there are nights when i’ll tire myself out chasing cars and city lights or writing about constellations i don’t even know, and there are nights like this, when i can’t help but steal our happy endings from the poems you haven’t read. there are nights like this, when your name dislodges me from the orbits i learned to tiptoe in just so i can forget what walking next to you feels like. there are nights like this, when i wish that our songs will wane with the moonlight.

there are nights like this, darling — when you’re asleep while i’m out here trying to unlearn the patterns of missing you — nights when i miss you even more than i want to.

there are nights like this, darling.

there are nights like tonight.

In the thick of sticky summer heat
A voice that still makes my heart skip a beat
Run my tongue over the sound of your name
Knowing nothing could ever be the same

Your love was motion sickness on a highway
Your love was a red card for foul play
The double yellow lines we once sped by
Made a hole in my heart for you to occupy

Now that hole has become a shallow grave
Everyday, a vast emptiness I stave
More than anything, I miss your eyes
Or how for once, I needed no disguise

In my mind we get to roleplay
You say through the night you'll stay
We both wake with sun on our skin
My fingers trace the outline of your grin

But I wake with no sunshine near
The dark emptiness only brings fear
Every day is a cycle I can't break
My life is shallow and fake

Though you've left, I'm glad you came
Every cherry tree still speaks your name
Part of me wishes you'd hold me once more
Whisper that I'm who you adore

This summer I hope you find someone new
I hold no misconceptions - we're through
I'll always keep you near my heart
Now and forever, together or apart

You once said you couldn't picture anyone not loving me.
Don't worry, I can picture it really, really well.

If all good things must come to an end
Then the nightmare of losing you is forever

how do you explain something
that you don't even understand yourself?

that's what mental illness is like.
always searching for the horizon
or some sort of earthly catastrophe
that could explain the brokenness
you feel inside your heart.

always afraid of getting
close to the thing most precious
to you out of fear that you might
break it or that it may be tainted by your demons.

that piercing feeling in your stomach
that you can't seem to shake in the
middle of the night as you lie awake
wondering if you deserve to see another sunrise.

mental illness is like a never-ending
dream of constant chaos
but underneath are broken
and beautiful people who
deserve to be loved and known.

you tell me what you've learned
from your "failed" marriage
when you fell for someone else;

"you can try to shirk away love
but the act of doing so will destroy you"

and a pang of sadness cuts deep
at the pit of my stomach as I realize
I will always be destroyed

they say we're asleep
until we fall in love
but dreams are the only
way I get to see your face
or touch your skin
life became the nightmare
awakening, impossible
when you're gone for good
love has left me

shards of broken glass
surround me as I walk
along this lonely road
listening to the sound of
the black sparrow
singing from the treetop.