[3rd piece of my incomplete book]

I woke up in a daze.
As if my dream were reality,
just whipped away from me as my eyes open
Now it's only a memory,
but not in the truest form.
I woke up in a daze.
All I could think about was sharing this dream with you.
I felt that I already had, but it was only a dream, my dream.
I somehow hoped that this dream occurred to the both of us,
in the same space and time of our minds,
but that's just hope.
What is hope anyway?
Do our souls dream?
If that were the case,
I'd believe that we could have shared it.
Would that make it a memory?
The chances of that connection are slim to none.
I know you well enough to know you don't sleep.
You lie there restlessly,
just waiting for the night to be over.
You hate when the sun goes down
It reminds you of your inability,
Your restlessness.
You always feel like you're wasting your time.
I wish you knew dreams like I do.
It's what I look forward to.
I know your insomnia like the back of my hand.
The hand that falls asleep beneath your anxious body
I always fall asleep before you shut your eyes
I always wake up to the smell of your coffee
That is why I wasn't surprised to roll over to an empty bed.
Well, besides the book you read on repeat night after night
It helps you forget that you are awake amidst a sleeping town
I wonder if you read to the rhythm of my breaths
Each word, in and out,
I wonder if that is what you call sleep
Inhale, exhale, soak in the meaning
That morning my mind told me you were downstairs writing
You're always writing in your leather-bound book.
My heart told me different.
I felt a hole.
A part of me leaking out.
Internally bleeding away my happiness, my soul.
My stomach dropped two hundred stories
I puked out my disbelief
I know she's gone. I can feel it.
More or less, I stopped feeling.
All I want is to feel the small of her back,
as she climbs into bed with her coffee every morning
Should I go back to sleep and pretend this isn't happening?
Will that make her come back?
It's all a dream.
Am I still asleep?
I'll be asleep until I see her again.

[2nd piece of my incomplete book]

I woke up on a park bench,
It was raining.
I was completely soaked,
but never have I felt more alive,
more at home
I rolled over as much as I could
I now stare across the distance of the park
There are no walls surrounding me
There is no one near me
No one to steal away the sounds of my own breathing
The trees are swaying, the rain is pounding
As if each breathe is the start of a measure
To this natural orchestra, the nocturne of my life
I sit up and wait for the switch to flip
The natural light of the sun begins to rise
I wonder if you've woken up yet
If you've turned over to see what's left of me
The book with my goodbye,
The crease in the right side of the bed,
I slept in the same place for so long
I wonder if you'll come looking for me,
I wonder if you'll know that I slept on this bench
when you walk by it when I'm gone
Should I leave a clue that only you would notice?
I guess I shouldn't give you false hope.
It's not that I want you to find me,
or do I?
How long would it take you to give up on the scavenger hunt of myself,
Would I be building myself up to being someone you thought you wanted,
the person you thought you needed?
I've already failed you once,
I can't bring myself to let that happen again.
I wrap up inside the raincoat of myself
What am I doing?
I have to remind myself that I've wanted this for so long
I've needed this for so long
You're the only one I ever thought I loved
Even if that love wasn't mine
I stretch my arms out
I wonder if they're extended towards you,
our house, the walls that kept me trapped
The hands that held me back
I'm crummy with directions
You'd be able to tell me
Maybe it's better that I don't know
I left a tear on the side of the bench for you,
but the rain quickly washed it away
It soaked through the pages of my leather-bound book
All of my thoughts have been pressed together,
The ink runs out and onto my hands
As if these years are being erased,
compressed into an ink-stained book,
the writing is almost illegible
The distance between the start and the finish of the story
No longer could be counted by words,
Only blank pages.
I bury it next to the sidewalk
Where we used to walk the dog
Maybe she'll smell it, she'll know it was mine
Perhaps you'll be able to decipher the pages
The gaps between the runny words can be an explanation
An explanation for the blank stare I gave you
after you kissed me goodnight on our last night.
That last night... I stare blankly into the morning,
I have failed you.

[1st piece of my incomplete book]

I gaze over at your sleeping body
Your chest rises and falls at a constant pace
Like the tides of the ocean
Bringing in new feelings and taking away the old
My breathing gets panicky
I can't sleep anymore
I grab my book and read without soaking in the meaning
I take the red pen out of the bedside table drawer
and circle "I can't do this."
I flip the pages to find what else I'm trying to say
"I'm sorry."
I leave my book in my place on the right side of the bed,
It doesn't feel right anymore.
I walk silently out the door
I grab my chest, but not for the pain of leaving you,
but for the pain I'm about to cause you
Part of me hopes you'll wake up and stop me,
but I'm already out the door.
My chest tightens, my palms are sweaty
I feel like I'm escaping out of myself
Breaking down the walls that kept me frozen solid for so long
I stare blankly back at the window we used to share
I feel cold
It's eighty degrees out
My palms are sweaty with the tears I'm unable to cry
I left my favorite book at your side
Thinking that somehow that will make up for everything
I know it won't.
I look back at the blank window as if your silhouette were there.
I put my hand over my mouth,
I whisper,
"I can't do this. I'm sorry."

The sand beneath my feet
The grains outnumber those of our existence
Flowing in between my toes
The sun shines on me,
but it also shines through me
and onto your eyes, it lies inside
I can't help but stare
I am constantly in awe with your beauty
Another one of God's immaculate creations
I can't help, but listen to every word
every story, every laugh, every silence
You are so beautiful.
It's not as hard as it seems to find beauty in this world.
The waves crash in, and roll back out
Bringing in the new,
Taking away what once was
Washing away the past,
letting the newness take place
Over and over again the past is replaced
All I can do is thank God for bringing me happiness

No matter the distance
The miles we are apart
We still look at the same blue sky
Together, but separate
Our arms outstretched,
ready to hug the air
The space between us is filled with millions of people
breathing in and out
I wonder if the air you breath ever reaches me
Floats through my hair
Or gives me goose bumps on a cold day
Who knows...
This world is so small,
but we're even smaller
The space between us seems so vast
But in reality is quite minute
The only thing we have in common right now is the roof over our heads
The blue skies enveloping us within this world
The starry skies at night that we share with billions of others
Look up and we can share it together.

When I was little I used to go on family camping trips in a small tin-sided, pop-up camper. Not only were the sounds of the insects singing outside the zip-up, waterproofed cloth walls relaxing, but the feeling of unity and love I felt just from the fact that I was spending time with my family left me excited to wake up every morning. Even camping in the rain was soothing to me, the different tones of the sounds the droplets made when they fell heavily on the tin roof above my head... Waking up just to see that we'd sit inside the cramped space all day with each other sitting at the table that doubled as a bed playing chinese checkers while my brother shoved his red marbles up his nose... Laughing together, waiting for the rain to stop only so that we could sit around a fire together, hike together, just BE together. I can't believe I took that all for granted. Not only do I miss times like these, I feel like I hardly remember them. I keep the useless memories in my head, like the fact that one time we watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame on a rainy day, the way the crank which lifted the camper into it's full form looked like, but what about the moments of love I felt? Where are they? I wish I could reach through my mouth, up through my brain, into the back of my mind and pull them all out onto the table in front of me. Extract each memory useless or not and slap them onto the blank pages of the book which lies in front of me as I try to recollect what it felt like to be in this family. All I'm able to grasp is the lack of that family I once had, the red plastic checkers pieces we used to play with are now missing... leaving it all black. "King me" one piece says, repeatedly, they stack and stack up until all I can see is a black tower... It's in the way of what I want to see, what I want to feel. How did this all just slip away from me? How could my insomnia fail me in the times where I should have been paying attention to these feelings of wholeness? How could I sleep through that entire chapter of my life? It feels as if it was all a dream... A dream that I know I felt, but will never fully remember.