I No Longer Ache For You

I wake up in the morning to the sound of wind in trees,
to birds making their way across the still-dark sky
and I ache
with a gentle, numbing weight
that flutters across my chest,
pressing on my ribs like fingertips to a bruise,
drawing lines across the indents in my skin
the way you used to, as if to memorize the soft places of me.
I ache
so tenderly. All the memories still warm,
wrapped in the blankets, caught
between wake and sleep.
I ache
so beautifully, with the rise and fall of my chest,
bones stretching, yearning to dance
and my head filled with dizzy morning dreams.
I ache
so sweetly, for all the untouched places, for all the lips
I haven’t yet kissed.
I ache
so passionately, not for where I once was, not for the arms
that wrapped themselves around my body like a cage,
but for the air
I haven’t yet breathed
the arms and legs and sheets and dreams
not yet intertwined with my own.
I ache
for all that I don’t yet know I’m missing
but still taste the absence
metallic and raw on my tongue.