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by Courtneyrichmond

April 24, 2019

you ask me why whenever i am with you i fall sleep.

donʼt you get it?

the moments

hours

days without you

feel like months

years

decades

when you are not here i explained i am exhausted

my eyelids constantly growing heavy with the sight of my parents in battle

my skin and my bones feel weak, i cannot walk

i spend my moments taking care of everybody but myself

i donʼt eat for days

the food that does make it past my lips does not stay with me long

i make sure of it

but with you

i am a mountain

a sun

i am awake

i enjoy the little things

i notice them

i hold on to every part of you and me and us

i stop counting calories

i start laughing

my fingers are laced in yours and not into the pits of my stomach

i have a future

i feel clean

i no longer wish to keep my eyes peeled

watching and waiting for harm to come my way

for something to make me feel like a shadow in a room of light

i am at peace

your arms, my home

your chest, my pillow

i sleep because i can because i am not able

to when you are gone

i look into your eyes and your face and you as i unravel

until my purest self is revealed

i tell you everything there is to know

i pour myself into your hands and lay at your feet

you call me selfish

you tell me that if i really loved you i wouldnʼt put such a burden on you

you call me a burden

you say that you wouldnʼt be able to leave and not come back

it would be too hard

you would worry

right then all i could think of was the fact that you would worry

that the wellness of my being would be your most important thought

making you incapable of walking away and not looking back

oh what a fool i was to not notice that that was your plan all along

that was one year ago yesterday

you said your final goodbye sometime in the middle, i lost track

i want you to know that i have slept since you left

left me in the dark without my home or my pillow or my light

i found them in places i wasnʼt looking

in lighters

or bottles

or hands and beds of men who werenʼt capable of worrying

not about me

i slept not because i felt safe

but because it was one of the few ways to turn off my mind

it was a way for my brain to stop playing our greatest hits on repeat

it was a way out

so yes, i have slept since you left

but sleep is no longer my safe haven

no longer a relief

it is an escape

from a world without you in it.

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