Maybe Too Many

Collection of thoughts that I seriously needed out of my head and couldn't risk saving to my laptop.

It is a burning. A burning, aching, itching hole that you left. Somewhere deep inside me. On ‘your side’ of my bed. In ‘your draw’ in my room. In ‘your space’ in my car park. I try to sooth it with alcohol, drugs, boys. I don’t want the boys. I cancel last minute and I don’t call back. I go to where you are. You say you are drawn to me but it’s not the same. Jackie Kay says that “Loss is not an absence after all. It is a presence.” She’s right. It’s an obvious, unavoidable palpable presence. The presence of room for someone else on your side of my bed, room for s**t that I don’t need or want in your draw. The presence of your thanksgiving place card on my door that I just couldn't bring myself to take down until I could take mine down with it. That’s how it’s meant to be. Just like the place cards. One goes, the other goes with it. Just like those animals she talks about. The love of her life died. She wanted to die too. You didn't die. You left. So what do I do? Leave? Go where? Not with you that’s for sure. You didn't want to take me with you. Just take me home after too many drinks. Hold me through the night, tell me you love me, then part as friends the next morning. Or I sneak from your bedroom in the middle of the night. Bump into your mother on the landing. She thought you had company. ‘We’re no good at this.’ I say.

I wonder if you have that very same hole. The one on my side of your bed. While I creep down the stairs and back into the night. I wonder if my perfume lingers in your sheets. I wouldn't know. You don’t call. So I’ll have another drink. Maybe too many.