That night I heard you whimpered I thought I was dreaming but you struggled on your side of the bed, waking me up just to find you sweating and crying.

You started to have these dreams, where you were fighting for breaths in a sea of sludge, you were crawling on legs you could not feel, you were drowning. You struggled to breathe for hours. You were crying and it felt like I broke apart.  

These nightmares were recurring, so I let you drink to fall back to sleep.  

But it’s daylight now, bright and sunny, and you’re drinking again. You have turned into a zombie, but subdued and mute. You sat by the piano, staring at the keys. I wasn’t sure you were really there. You hardly eat. Sleep got you restless. You just sat there, day and night and day. You barely talk to me, as if I too wasn’t really there. 

I didn’t really want to go and left you alone when everything felt unreal to you and you weren’t even there to feel, or to be. But maybe, just maybe, you wanted to be alone.

Maybe, just maybe, the sea of sludge was me.

I hardly hear you, holding back tears like that and you know I wanted you to say it, that I was there for a reason. But the truth was, I couldn’t bear myself to see you like this, every night, and day and night and day. I was exhausted.

You’re so thin, your bones sprouting out of your elbows. Your jaw turned sharp that you looked so different sometimes. I had to convince myself you’re just the same as before your accident.

i have blown a thousand apologies into the air, didn’t you feel them in your breaths when you’re running into the wind? feel me there. feel me in your lungs, in your chest, inhale me into your veins —here’s to every moment i made you bleed. here’s to every pain every sting every stab every scar and every kiss. here’s to everytime i leave with not so much to keep…