Darling

Tell me about your loneliness, sweetheart

Tell me how it

rrrips you up every time you try to fall asleep

and forces you out of bed every morning,

inspiring you to go on a search for another "one"

who'll take you out of your misery.

Tell me that you are

an empty hall

a house on fire

the loneliest fish in the sea.

Tell me about the feeling that none of the biology textbooks can explain,

that hollow, dull, sharp, hot, cold

pain in your chest.

Tell me it's the pain my absence left behind.

And then ask me about my loneliness, darling.

Ask me if my heart still races when I

think it's you on the bus across the street

and if it still falls into a bottomless pit when I realise it isn't.

Ask me if I still see you in everything in this damned city,

ask me if I still mention you to my friends when I forget you're not mine anymore,

or if I learnt to catch the words before they fly out of my mouth

and if I learnt to stop the thought before it races through my head.

Tell me how my smell too lingers in your no-

No, no, okay, stop. This really isn't helping.

You asked me about my loneliness, darling.

Well, just listen to me -

I'm talking to myself.

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