Midnight Reflections

When I was freshly eighteen I wrote an unfinished story about what it felt like each time my ex-boyfriend left home to go back to his army base. I never got around to posting said story. I decided why waste a good blog post? So here it goes…

Written 01/08/2024

I dread nightfalls of when the clock gets closer to striking twelve. The clock never knows when to stop. When will it give me more time? What deal do I have to make with time to make you mine? I hear the tick in my sleep and the tock when you leave. 

Reality strikes every time I say my final goodbyes. You’re not gone. you can’t be gone. I feel the confirmation of denial being the first stage of grief coursing through my body with no mercy, nor permission. I grieve when you leave because you’re the whole ‘part’ of me.

They take you away from me without recompensation. I wake up screaming in desperation to stop the broach of your leaving every time they say the end is coming. I arise from my bed where my body laid in some blood bath from the torture of your departure. I find myself stumbling into the bathroom where I find you in the mirror standing behind me.

I see you in places where I know you’ve touched, you’ve smelled, you’ve entered. Anywhere you let oxygen in and anywhere you left your carbon dioxide stream out. 

I feel you in the kitchen when I’m cooking. I see you smiling at me from the couch as I walk towards that direction with hot chocolate in my hands. 

The more the topic of your leaving is mentioned, the more I feel time punishes me by picking up its pace. I refuse to believe you’ll ever withdraw yourself from any room I’m in, even when it’s time for you to go. I refuse to believe it until I am left with nothing to see but the back of your head whisking towards your exit. I don’t believe it until the heels on your boots become blurry the farther you walk away. Boots were made for walking, but I was never fully prepared to see yours impairing my heart once I lose them in the crowd of random people I reject to see.

It hurts to see anything but the precious cheeky smile plastered on your mesmerizing face. 

I feel like a New York lit Christmas tree when your presence is finally near me and within my reach. 

I see you in the white cars, the streets we’ve passed by, the places we laughed in, the stores we shopped in. Hallways we’ve held hands in.

Life loses all meaning when you’re not near me.

How many nights it takes to count the stars feels like the same amount of time it’ll take for you to come home.

Forever unfinished and inspired by ‘Beside you’ by 5 Seconds of Summer.

-A