The Shape of Your Name

Some nights,

sleep would not come to me

until I built you out of memory.

I’d close my eyes

and summon the soft weight of your voice,

the warmth tucked between syllables,

like a blanket pulled over tired skin.

I’d breathe deep,

imagining the trace of your scent

lingering in the dark,

as if the air itself

remembered you better than I did.

I reach for the pillow beside me,

pretending it’s the place your body belongs,

pretending the hollow of the sheets

could still carry your warmth.

I whisper into the silence,

hoping the night learns the shape of your name,

and carries it back to you somehow.

And only then,

with you stitched back together

from fragments of longing,

could I surrender to rest,

Because distance has taught me

that love stretches further than my arms,

That miles are only numbers

when my heart still finds you in the quiet.

So I fall asleep

as if you were just on the other side of the bed,

as if the rhythm of your breath

were close enough to steady mine.

Even from so far away,

You are here,

in the dark, in the silence,

in the softest corners of my heart.

Until morning lets me hold you again through a screen,

Until the day finally comes

when I no longer have to imagine.

-dmnd