the dark side (out of cookies)

it's that silence.

after you say sweet dreams

and i'm saying i love you again

because what if you die in your sleep

but you're already gone.

and you're six hundred miles away.

it's this emptiness.

after i scan the horizon for you and

my stomach folds into itself

with the rerealization that

i can't listen to your laugh with

steady static separating us.

it's also this fullness.

while my heart swells, its stitches taut

and all its contents threatening to pour over

but it chokes and drowns in loneliness

because you can't join in its timid song when

you're so far away.

it's that silence.

after i say i love you another time

because what if i die in my sleep

and then you're gone

again