when i speak your name,
my lips try to smile.

when you speak her name,
your lips do smile.

i will never be to you
what you are to me.

i wish that i had known that from the start.

it's not that i am always quiet,
or that I never have anything
to say.

i do have things to say.
I am simply waiting for a
pause in the conversation;

an empty space
my words
can fill.

but the conversation
does not stop, and the words
of others flow effortlessly around me,
not even noticing my absence.

and I know that I have
missed my chance
once again.

there is an ache inside of me;
it occurs somewhere between the
moments of waking and sleeping.

there is something about letting go
that makes it so hard to do.

i am afraid to close my eyes.  
i am afraid to turn out the light.

i will prolong the inevitable as long as possible,
battling against the drooping eyelids,
battling against the heavy sighing.

another day is gone.
another tick mark on the wall.

i have done nothing.
i will remember nothing--in a few days, at least.
i will become nothing (but an empty shell, i'm assuming)

wasting  away
in the confines of my bedroom.
too afraid to go outside;
having grown so used to being alone
that the thought of spending time with another
does not even occur to me.

there is something so frightening about that thought.