28 November

Simon.

Sometimes, when it’s really late, and it’s not so much that I can’t sleep, but just that I won’t, (such a coward I am, I can’t even say this on paper…. On paper that I will most certainly burn before it can do me any harm) … sometimes, maybe I break just a little. There among my pillows and the overabundance of blankets, because I get so cold. Maybe I reach for you, and maybe I .. maybe I imagine what it would be like having you there. Just to burrow into, just to float with, just to breathe beside, our dreams mixing above us in the shared, twining night. And these are the things I don’t allow myself to think all through the day. These are the things I mercilessly squash. Me with my metaphorical head-tossing and my defiance. Me with my barracks heart. But here. Here on this page. Under this moon. At this unearthly hour. Here is where I pull down the window dressing. Here is where that triple-security-locked heart is laid bare, seen, crumpled and deflated, lying on the cold ground, weak and weeping. And maybe I do cry. And maybe once in a while, I drag my blanket over to the window seat and drown in the tears and the hours, and the liquid stars. When the night is like a black ocean, and the fish that swim in it are the collected sorrows of the shadows of the hearts of men. And mine is there among them. And I watch it. Until I can’t anymore. Until it disappears into sleep.