i cant bring you back with memories

nights like these im exhausted but cant sleep, hungover and water logged, anxious and sentimental. my skin growing hot every time i think of you, starting below my shoulders, up through my neck and behind my ears, its dizzying really, and i think of water, cool, rushing water, how i want to submerge myself, how i want that silence, that drone, that liquid buzz and when i come up for air, everything will feel better. everything will be how it was.

nights like these i think of watching you dress in the mornings from bed, one of my favorite things to do. i think of you naked, of your skin after a shower, of falling asleep while you worked in the other room, coming in hours later, sliding in next to me, the way my bed feels so unoccupied here, i still get in on the right side, try to take up as little room as possible before the emptiness is too much and i spread my arms and legs out to the four corners and hope that sleep will come, but it rarely does.

nights like these im reminded of those first few hours, first few days, that hollowness in my chest opens up and i cant breathe, i dont recognize myself in the mirror and i hardly speak all day. i want to turn my brain off but i cant bare it, the thinking of you, the not thinking of you.

nights like these i know i cant bring you back with memories. i cant begin to understand how my life changed so drastically in one day, in 12 hours. one night im calling you darling, lover, dear and the next i can hardly get your name out, i can hardly look myself in the mirror, i cant smile, i cant see straight. nights like these i want you to take back all those terrible words, i want to go back, move back, leave, jump ship, fly to you, beg, cry and scream and pound on your chest, make some drastic gesture, put all my cards on the table, be reckless, do something crazy, but i dont. it wouldnt change anything, nights like these dont change anything about the past, they move you forward, grudgingly, forward.