Absence

The clock ticks.

Each tick revolves around its axis, clicking into place around an eternity of silence lost.

The too large bed aches under my turning body.

Shuffling covers can never soothe.

While the wind blows and the floor creeks, a midnight car washes through the streets. With the earplugs in, I still hear it, but it’s mixed.

It’s mixed with the pounding of my broken heart.

The tears are silent but the rasping throat is not.

The dying hum of my computer—it mocks me. The rain, the sounds that used to lull me, pelter my window. The shuffle of tissues never seem to stop.

Only when the birds begin to sing do I stop hearing my own convulsions of grief. The thud of the box is what I last remember before the alarm rips me back into cold reality. The clock ticks once more.