This Season

I hate sleeping alone. And yet I've never quite gotten the hang of sharing my bed either. Perhaps a lack of practice. I never sleep soundly with another body present, but I crave that body. I'm starting to take it personally. Surely it's me. If it's not my exterior I'm emitting it energetically. STAY AWAY I must be screaming silently. I don't want to hear your opinions if you agree. That voice that narrative that story echoes through my entirety as it is. In constant battle with the one that says you're perfectly imperfect, you are enough, you deserve the best, be patient. Yet when I look around the sole being on an ark of pairs... "You'll find someone. Give it time. You deserve.... Love yourself first.... Hold out for him...You deserve someone amazing." Patronizing bullshit. Save it. It lines the path of my wood; well meaning propaganda. You don't know how it comes. Or when. Or why. All you know is your story. Don't pretend you know mine.

I don't know what I hope for anymore. I try to erase the images I've painted of me and him raising a family and traveling the world. Laughing in the kitchen and debating at the bathroom sink. In case they never come to pass. I've tried to tell myself that the things I want were put there by the fairy tales. And that I won't ever tell my daughters of Cinderella. Only Peter Pan and Alice, those whose first love was curiosity and imagination, not a man. My hope being that they don't ever feel like I do.

Like somehow they are the reason they sit in the tower and wonder if anyone is coming. No dragon to slay and no chains to break. I've saved myself. I'm just waiting on the kiss. Is it coming?

I'm sad. There are a lot of emotions present in me, but none more prominent that the sadness. Standing in the void has never been so cold. And some days I can bear it. I can move briskly across the unknown and feel nary the air of nothing on my skin. But nights like tonight? It consumes me and freezes the marrow in my bones.

I know it will pass. But I have to acknowledge it. The craving for a soul who cares how my day went. If I ate dinner yet, and if I'd like dessert? Or more befitting of us, a night cap. The hunger for a being who can tell I need a hug after a long week. Says good morning beautiful and holds me until I fall asleep.

I just want to fall asleep.

I want to hold a rose in my hand without crushing the petals or pricking my finger. I chew my tongue hoping for answers. An inkling of what to do or where to turn. The other unmatched souls in the void offer company but it brings no peace. Lonely plus Lonely still equals...and deep down everyone knows that. It's why we compromise. We justify. We accept and we forgive. Because it is all infinitely less biting than this winter. I can't move in it. I can't feel sunshine. Just cold. I would scream but I can't make a sound. No one would hear it, my forest is empty.