Drowning In Memories Of You

At night, when the quiet in my bed feels almost suffocating, my mind drifts to you.

Unwanted and undesired, memories flood and pool around me, swimming in the dark.

In the silence, I can hear your breathing again,

how the pattern of your breath whispered to me that you had drifted into dreams.

I can feel my hand rest softly on your chest, riding the ebb and flow of that breath like wave,

rocking me to sleep.

I remember how small I felt, when you pulled me into you.

How you tried to bend your long legs to match mine, and wrapped your hand around and under me, enveloping me completely.

Like these memories envelope me now.

But these images blow up in colors of red around me the moment they enter.

In the dark, the fire inside me burns the room – the reality – to light, too bright.

I see her in your arms now, in our bed.

These images of you and her feel just as real and just as clear as you and me.

The black turns to red, and the red becomes hot and angry.

And the anger cannot be snuffed out like a flame.

I hope the ghost of me creeps into these moments with her.

I hope the edges of her body feel sharp in your arms,

and that when you wrap your hand around and under her

that it doesn’t quite reach.

I hope that bed still wreaks.

Wreaks with the memory of me.

A smell that you can’t avoid.

Or run away from,

like you ran from me,

like you ran from you.

And that you feel the weight of the dark around you,

like I do.

I’m learning to live with this dark,

with the black, and the red.

I wait for the day when the red finally burns to white.

I ache for the white, for the light,

to lead me out of these memories of you.