I Wish You Were Here to Share

These long mellow silences of the night

These sleepless nights have not been that bad They have given birth to thoughts that are wild sometimes solemn but all together fruitful

I wish you were here to share to read through what they have produced to ask me to change some words to insist I stop reading out loud when I wake up with a husky voice you call a horrible baritone caused by all the coffee and beer in the daytime

But I am thankful you are not here Loneliness has its gains

I turn and wake up reach out to find that empty space that jolts me awake

Your body should have been there but I don’t miss you the way you think in that biological need that Nature adopts to ensure the clan goes not extinct

I still feel your presence and hear your voice in my head and your thoughts in the air and nothing, nothing fills the absences better than knowing you are not here but you’re not gone

And the currents filter through to warm and lighten the space and if this is what they mean by love and loving then I can relate because I’m beginning, to borrow your words, to be human all over again

The poems are so lyrical You will love them I can see you turning away your head so I don’t get swollen headed with my accomplishments

I keep reminding you I am good but not as good as I meant to be and that’s why I stay up those punishing hours pushing myself to polish my craft

I sleep like a baby when I strike the right chords making it all appear effortless at the end like the works of a gifted master

Come home when you can but there’s no hurry what you give from the distance fills even if it leaves me a little thirsty and a little testy but I am fine and enjoying these mellow silences of the long nights

“i felt her absence. it was like waking up one day with no teeth in your mouth. you wouldn’t need to run to the mirror to know they were gone” ― James Dashner

“But now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.” ― Audrey Niffenegger

“I discover that absence has a consistency, like the dark water of a river, like oil, some kind of sticky dirty liquid that you can struggle and perhaps drown in. It has a thickness like night, an indefinite space with no landmarks, nothing to bang against, where you search for a light, some small glimmer, something to hang on to and guide you. But absence is, first and foremost, silence. A vast, enveloping silence that weighs you down and puts you in a state where any unforeseeable, unidentifiable sound can make you jump.” ― Philippe Besson

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.” ― Maurice Sendak