I would rather know what is real than live a lie.  I would prefer to reach out and touch the pain that breaks me than constantly be chasing the salve that isn't made for this kind of struggle.

So, sometimes I reach out for you simply because I know you're not there.  In that moment before I open my eyes, I lay my hand on the cold side of a bed you've never seen in the hope that you'll be in a place you've never been.  And the loneliness swaddles me.  Because, if you were there, that would mean that life had inexorably changed.  It would shift my world in ways that I wouldn't recover from, and I would not be who I have always been.  I wouldn't be the one left behind anymore.  I wouldn't be the one overlooked anymore.  I wouldn't be able to lean on my comfortable sadness anymore.

So, I often start to make a call I can't finish only because I know you won't answer.  I work up an entire conversation in my mind right before I lay the phone back down and turn away.  Because I can't watch it not ring again.  Because I've listened to the silence for so long that I think it's your ringtone.

You are everywhere and nowhere, ever present and gone for good.  I feel your eyes melting my heart even as I hear your footsteps walking away.  I remember the words that broke open my sky even as I forget the way the breeze felt through my hair. 

And, I know what is real.  I can feel it on the cold side of the bed.  I can hear it in the silence.  And I can wrap myself in it as a shelter from the lies.  I won't cry anymore because the truth can't hurt me.  I won't hold on anymore because letting go will free us both.