Goodnight (Angel)

Falling asleep alone.

"Goodnight." he said, in a dispassionate, mechanical tone. Even to himself, it was cold and plainly apathetic.

Inside, he bawled out the words, an unintelligible surrender, his heart quivering and mad with starvation. "Notice me. Touch me. Feed me!!!" It snarled, weakly.

Both understood this little exchange. Emotional shorthand for thousands of words in a dialog, memorized long ago. What an efficient form of abuse. So passive-aggressive.

This nightly ritual , sincere in its expression of love for one another, was his greatest comfort in life.
This, he understood, was how the broken and unlovable close the book on each day.

Secure in the knowledge that there is someone under the roof of the place he calls home. Sleeping too far away to hold or to hear her breathing beside him.

She had not abandoned him like the others. He held onto that, as he curled up each night, under the blanket she had made him.

Goodnight to all the people sleeping alone together, in whatever state of separation from the ones you love.