Just Another Night

And as your scent wanes away, as your voice echoes through my soul, I no longer find comfort in your arms - I reach out into emptiness, and emptiness takes hold.

I drown.

I drown in an ocean of questions. I kick my way through doubts and memories. I struggle for air, only to realize the air is your scent, and I am confused.

I wake up, suddenly, realizing it was no more than a dream, and the ocean was an ocean of tears. My tears.

Afraid to fall asleep, I lie in my bed, staring in to darkness, and I remember how the thought of you always colored the shadows. I take a few breaths, cautiously, as I expect to find your scent as my air. I reach a false state of calm - a gray zone that I have been walking through since you've been gone.

I organize my thoughts. I line them up in my mind - my army of questions, ready for inspection. I shudder as I feel each one pierce me like a dagger. But then I realize that it is only one question in my mind, one weight pulling at my heart:

Why I love you so much?

It is the same question over and over, circling me as I lie in my bed. It taunts me, and tortures me with each possible answer.

I do not understand. I find no logic. Logic ran away when pain settled in. But I do not miss it; I know that logic will not feel like a moment in your arms.

And these questions only eliminate the remains of your voice and what's left of your scent. In the war inside my soul, the questions kill off the memories.

But then again, why remember?

Memories keep us bound to the past, blinding us to what happens in the present. But if the present isn't exactly what we had hoped for in the past, is it such a crime to wish to keep living something we liked? Is it such a crime to wish to keep something we loved? Love is so rare and precious, it's worth fighting for. Can you not see that?

And as tears once again run down my face, each one falling and whispering "why", I am startled as I hear a familiar sound.

My cell phone. As the ringtone grows louder, I am amazed to hear my heartbeat drown it out. I look at the screen, and there you are, summoned from the depths of my desires.

I answer, and your voice once again colors the shadows. You tell me you love me, and my heart believes you. You assure me that I am the one, and I can detect no lie as I see your voice in my mind.

I do not want to think. I am just grateful that my tears have stopped. As I hang up, I can breathe your scent once again, and your voice still sings to me. There is no pain. There is no logic. There's only the feeling of your arms wrapped around me as I am finally able to go to sleep. I embrace my dreams fearlessly, for I know that whenever I reach out, I will find your hands this time, if only in my dream. I am content for what's left of the night, even though I know that tomorrow, I will greet the day soaked in an ocean of doubts and memories once again.