And the night is so much more lonely without you. I made a pile of stuff on the bed and it smells like us because it’s both of our clothes (I’m cleaning my closet out of winter stuff, finally!). I made an appointment for our boy with a tummy ache and the moon is waning tonight over our house. But its quiet here without you and nothing quite feels like its in the right spot. Not even our house, it creaks like it feels the missing weight of one less body.
I didn’t mean to, but I thought about the thing you told me not to think about. It was hard not to, the room is just so dark and the palm tree whose shadow puppet branches scrape across our window take me back to those late night conversations. Wide-eyed you would tell me about the things in the corner of the rooms. They don’t stop you’d say while I held you against my chest waiting for your tears to stop.
Every out-of-place sound puts me on edge. I can handle the crickets, the old man snoring, and the cats shifting in their sleep. It’s the bumps and groans of the house that set my teeth against each other. It’s getting harder to imagine falling asleep.
Nothing hurts more than the things we said to each other. For what? Such little things, puny, filthy, little things. All the fights over what amounted to ego and the right to be right, correct. I thought of their name. God, help me through this night.
When you died, your mom asked for three suitcases and the charm she gave you at birth. It hurt packing away all of your things. You couldn’t have looked more at peace than when I found you in our bed. Yet the pandemics had to pry our sheets from your hands.
I can still feel the hot gasps of your apology on my neck as you hold onto me and burn tears down your cheeks. You weren’t one to apologize which meant something always to me when you did.
You had to tell me because it was burning you up. The way they eat at your life like all the little things we give permission to feed on ourselves.
They started to burn me up. To think of them. You taught me to fear them and God you were right. The room, it’s breathing from the walls and ceiling. Nobody is in this empty house. Nothing can hurt me. And yet.
They’re coming for me. I can feel the night saturate like a sponge soaking petrol. Something is prickling my neck and a whisper in my ear “I told you not to think about them.” They got to you too, didn’t they? Of course, that’s why they’re coming for me now.
The bed sheets are soaked in sweat by now. I can’t decide if I’m burning up and feel cold or freezing and feel feverish. Our smell, in the sheets, something just grabbed my leg. It wrapped around my ankle and squeezed.
You never told me what they are, but I believed you from the terror on your face. You warned me, and they found you. and now they’ve found me. I think, soon, I will find you too.