Distance Makes for Hard Mornings

In the morning. The way I feel when I’m aching to be held. Dim light bleeding through the dusty window pane becomes my awakening. The light unfolding my eyelids reminds me that I’m cold because you’re not there to be my pillow and blanket, instead I settle with the unwelcoming lump under my head and the white comforter stained from last night’s chocolate binge. But you were never here, not in this bed. It’s not you who’s missing from where you belong, it’s me. I left your warmth, and now I’m forced to settle against the empty space between body and bed.

Now we’re kept warm not through kisses, not through hugs, not through early morning I love you gasps. We’re not touch or taste or feeling anymore; we’re seeing through screens and hearing through speakers. We’re “I’m sorry I missed your call” and “What time is best for a phone date?” What was once burning bright with an abundance of captured fire is now a small kindling of twigs, a thin brush lit aflame by a freezing hiker with the only oil left in his lighter. The only warmth he has is burning as bright as it can, keeping him alive and well enough, but still he yearns for the toasty and full hearth he left behind.

You’re my hearth, you’re still my warmth, I’m still surviving off of you.

But it’s hard to hold myself in the dark of morning when I’ve known what it’s like to be held by you.