Not Quite

And where are you, when I am alone in the middle of the night, in the dark, and it is cold and stretched-out empty and my eyes are dull-stinging with pain and the noises escape, strangled, from my throat and I hear them from somewhere far away, from somewhere deep down inside, from somewhere floating out in space; where are you, then? Far away apart, and your arms are not around me, warm, and there is nothing to anchor me to this place, to myself, to anything at all. If you were here, and solid, and keeping me from sinking down or floating up, so far that I could never come back, ever; if you were here, like that, then maybe I could stop. Maybe something small inside could make me, because it leaves me feeling awkward, or stupid, or ugly, or unworthy; if you -- if anyone -- were here, then maybe I could stop myself, stop this. Stop it. But when it's just me, alone in the dark, and the room is cold and the shivering involuntary, and my arms the only ones wrapped around myself, and not even half as tightly as I need them, and the night is long and hollow and my eyes burn with the hot salt hurt of it, and I can't remember how to breathe, and it won't stop, I won't; I cannot. Stop. When it is only me, and no one else, there is nothing that can make it stop, nothing that will slow it down, nothing there at all. And it is hours later, when maybe finally exhaustion can take over and drag me limply into something that is pretending to be sleep, but isn't really, and it will be more than a day before I trust myself to look into a mirror, because there isn't anything inside I want to see. Things are not quite. And more than that, something like a lifetime before I find you and your arms again, somewhere far away (and by that time, it probably won't matter any longer, anyway). But then, why should they be. They never are.