When he comes back, he sleeps. And when he sleeps, he snores. Some nights it’s not a problem, other nights I am woken up over and over until I decide that to stay sane I must give up, get up and go elsewhere. Tonight I don’t want to go away so I lie awake and remind myself that he is at least here, that I am grateful for the noisy reminder of our shared lives, that – for now at least – it is better to be awake with my lovelessness than asleep alone.
To lie awake in the night and listen to the breathing of one’s beloved is the stuff of poetry and love songs; I think of Aerosmith’s ‘Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ and the music sets itself to the rhythmic snoring. Does Bruce Willis snore? I bet he does. I’m not sure if this is a comfort.
In the darkness I still feel alone and long to reach out and touch him, something I am too afraid or too proud to do. So I sit in the dark, full of this almost unbearably painful longing and an equally intolerable loathing for my own frail neediness.
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