The Hours Between Midnight And Reality Are The Hardest

The days are long and the nights, endless. Falling asleep is hard, knowing you won’t be there when I wake. And that when I open my eyes, I will wake up to a different reality, one without you in it. I try to fill my mind with random thoughts, to prevent the hurt from creeping in but between midnight and falling asleep, the silence almost always invites you in.

My mind wanders to our first night together, when we fell asleep holding hands. I thought about nights when I rested my head against yours as you planted kisses on my forehead, just before you whispered goodnight. I thought about nights when we didn’t sleep, sharing kisses, dreams and life in between the sheets.

I remember nights when I stayed awake, a little longer than I should, and buried my face a little deeper into your chest, not wanting the night to end too soon, knowing perfectly well that I will eventually have to let you go one day.

Thoughts about nights that we had, make nights like tonight impossible to get through.

The hours between midnight and reality are the hardest. 

I lay awake in bed, afraid of closing my eyes. And even through the darkness of my bedroom and heart, all I can see is you. You left a little bit of yourself at different corners of my apartment and in exchange took pieces of my heart, leaving me with a constant reminder of what it could have been.

Everything’s where you left them that night. The dress that you said you loved on me, still on the floor, your cigarettes by the window, your toothbrush resting just beside mine. The scented candle that burned so brightly on your birthday as you made your wish, still on the coffee table, too sacred to be moved. Perhaps, deep down inside, I’m hoping leaving them just as they are can make the moment last a little longer. And that maybe, just maybe, you’d come back and it’ll be as though you’d never left.

The hours between midnight and reality are the hardest.

It is quiet and still. My bedroom’s no longer filled with your voice or our laughter. The familiar sound of your messages wishing me goodnight and telling me you miss me is now silent. I wonder how something that once made me feel so alive is now killing me so slowly inside.

It’s getting brighter outside. Daylight has broken, and so has my heart.

I’m still learning to let go of you physically, mentally and emotionally so that one day, you will no longer occupy the spaces of my apartment, mind and eventually heart. And when that day comes, you will no longer live in my dreams but beautifully in my memory.

And maybe then, the hours between midnight and reality will no longer hurt and I can finally fall asleep.