EVERYTHING IS SO QUIET WITHOUT YOU

The silence after separation (SPECIAL COLLABORATION WITH TABBY MAC)

THINKING OF HER... I roll over in bed to an empty space. You are gone and it's for real. So many times we made love here. This was our place of comfort. Holding each other skin to skin. Conversations about nothing. Arguments over everything. The closet is half full. Your clothes are no longer scattered on the floor. But what I feel most of all is how QUIET the bedroom is now... I drive to work the radio plays but I'm not listening. I ignore the traffic sounds outside of my car. I can't hear it today. I am no longer concerned about what I am doing at the moment. This is a time of reflection. The road trips. Driving to get away from the world. Driving to get away from each other. Good and bad memories but they are ours. I can still feel your presence in the passenger seat. I can still hear your voice in my ear. I look over to where you should be and face reality. You are gone and the car so QUIET now... Work is work as usual. But my phone is silent. There no phone calls from you to help get me through the day. The lunch spot around the corner is no longer an option. You won't be there. Am I the only one feeling this way? Do you still think about me? I think we made a mistake. I think I made a mistake... The worst part of the day. Coming home to an empty house. Or what's left of it. The kitchen. The living room. The bathroom. There are only a few small things you left behind that remind me you were here. The most important thing I still have of you is your phone number which you will eventually change or maybe not. I need to call you. Hear your voice. But I made a promise. You needed your time away from me. No phone calls. No visits. This is agony. Are you suffering too? I close my eyes and think about us. Everything is so loud in my head. But when I open my eyes you still are not here and everything is just so...QUIET... THINKING OF HIM... We finally did it. We called it quits. The reality both haunts and comforts me. My clothes in a heap on my childhood bed." I need to get my own place. Staying at home is humiliating." My mother is broken hearted. My dad is relieved. I don't have room for their thoughts right now. The first night my head is spinning with memories and uncertainty. My heart yearns to be happy but the comfort of him is like gravity. At work i find myself searching for peace. I both long for the nights but, dread them at the same time. My friends tell me it's for the best and that I need to find a distraction. I'm not sure. Our song plays on the radio. My thoughts race. My friends are right. After work I head straight to the beach. The SILENCE I'm so afraid of, clears my head. As I watch the waves crash and retract fiercely much like my heart, it all starts to make sense. Why didn't we do this sooner? Life is too short to settle for second-best.Besides...I've missed myself. How did I get so lost? It was easy to go through the motions. The mediocre rhythm of everyday became easier than facing the truth. The cool sand between my toes.I think of his heart. He has hope for us. I hope for him. The hot sun has bleached out my doubts though...I'm moving on. This SILENCE which once confused me has set me free. I stand and walk into the ocean. I let the waves wet my hair as I watch the sun set. The tide is now in and my sea is calm. I return to shore.

Author's Note

This is a second collaboration between myself and Tabby Mac. The best writitng partner and human being anybody could ask for. She of course provided the female perspective of this story. This is a work of fiction but I assume a few of you can relate to this material so please give us your honest critiques and opinions.(thank u t.m. for being there when I needed you)

Reviews

[EcstaticEuphoria]

Beautiful! Meaningful and well done as always, such a great way to get the "two sides of the story". So often we get lost in the one side, but this piece is an ode to there's always choices that both sides make in a relationship that take it where it ends up and this truly captures that essence. Keep sharing!

[AliceBarnes]

This was actually really sad, and it brought tears to my eyes! Can't really help that I am listening to sad songs though. I hope you don't mind, but I would very much like to use aspects of this (not the dialogue or anything just some of the lines) because they really inspired me to write one of the later scenes for my book. I really do understand if you don't want me to do that but I just found it so inspiring that it got the creative juices flowing. Now when I say use a bit of it I mean " I can still hear your voice in my ear. I look over to where you should be and face reality." something like that, I would of course give you credit if I did use anything from your work. Now, back to the review haha I loved this, as I said it brought tears to my eyes. It could have done with being split up into paragraphs just to make it easier to read, but other than that it was beautifully written and I really enjoyed reading!

[Kathy Van Kurin]

"EVERYTHING IS SO QUIET"
KCthe lastboyscout,
Queiet is such a important healing place but here it seems to haunt. This solitude is where the process of healing and re-building happens.
"My head is spinning with memories and uncertainties." Good line, this is important...we have to think.
The silence is so big in this piece of writing.
I enjoyed it very much.
Kathy

[Kai Harmon]

Wow....this really pulls on the heart strings. I usually have trouble finding stories with a good attention grabber in the very first line but you showed amazing emotional pull and empathy to this writing. I really wish I had better words to say I was almost speechless at this. Very well written composition.