I awoke last night-

Still drowsy from dreaming-

To be enveloped instantly

By a surreal silence

As the darkness

Carried the weight of your absence

To the depths

Of its sulking shadows.

I sat there,

Alone and shaking-

Upright in the bed-

Blanketed

In an all too restrictive covering

Of icy cold, concrete-like blackness-

Unable to breath,

Too fearful to move-

For so long had I been with you

That without you

Was so much more

Than my being could possibly

Comprehend.

It was palpable

Your loss-

And I was un-comforted

By this dead air

That lingered

In the wake of your exodus.

The constant company

Of your companionship

Had been so normal,

So ordinary,

Such a daily acceptance

Of my waking life,

That to be deprived

Of all imaginable sound

Felt, last night,

In that newly prisoned room,

Like flesh ripped from bone,

Sight removed from eye,

Sense depleted from skin-

How powerfully your presence

Had domination over me

And how foolish I was

In my failure to notice.

I awoke last night

Distracted by a dis-ease

That slithered itself around me

Like a soiled serpent

As I fought my way

Through random reasons

Why you’d decided to dis-passionately desert me.

Fled fast- had you

After what you’d decided was our last act?

Had enough,

Had your fill,

Composed your composition upon me

And now

No more was I someone to muse over,

No more to play upon,

Practice upon,

Empress your tune upon.

Silence.

Was this more commonplace

Than I dared

Imagine

Or understand?

Had there been others before,

Others left behind,

Before me,

By you,

Left alone and abandoned

In the vicious vacuum

Of emptiness

That your departure creates?

I awoke last night-

But you being so far removed would have never known-

And all I could muster

Were tiny inaudible breaths

As my skin prickled over

In goose flesh

To amplify the remaining senses

While the hair rose high on the back of my neck.

For a moment,

I thought I detected your return

And darted from bed to window

To welcome you joyously-

Honestly and hole-heartedly

Yet it was all but hope

Highlighted by memory

Without a single footing in reality.

But I stood there,

In silence-

Standing still,-

Watching,

Wishing,

Waiting,

Willing you, silently

To show your head,

Sound the alarm,

An alarm, any alarm.

Re-claim your position at the top of the senses.

Re-claim me as your valued courter, customer, lover,

And above all-

Listener.

Leave me not like this;

Cast astray to only taste, touch and see.

Blast me once more into the wailing world,

Scream me into subservient submission.

Build for me an orchestra at the foot of my bed

To fill my sleepless days and wakeful nights

With stirring strings and operatic arias;

Cascading compilations of chaotic cacophonies.

Leave me not like this-

Not now

After so long-

After such a union was made-

Since eyes were first opened

And ears

First heard.

Name me not silently defeated,

Challenged,

Muted.

Blast me

Once more

With the full force

Of your symphonic soundings

And see how my ears shall tremble upon the tone.

Abandon me not to this stilted silence

Where nothing pains my ears more than this nothingness.

I awoke last night,

Still drowsy from dreaming-

Dreaming of you-

The only place where you still roar me to life.

I awoke last night

To what I have now truly learned is silence

And screamed in my head

For a nanosecond

Of noise.