When You Sleep Without Him

When you sleep without him
He's on a plane back home to Chicago
Wondering if you're still up
If he should call you when he gets in
Or if he should let you sleep

Not knowing you're not sleeping
Not knowing you're in bed
Staring at the pillow
That was temporarily his

Wondering if you should put it on the floor
To erase the place he had in your bed

To wind back time
And make this summer
A break from reality

It's colder already, isn't it?
Isn't it already cold?

When you sleep without him
You can get your reading done
You can catch up on late night tv
You can finally meet up with your DVR
And write to-do lists

Clean the Car
Clean the Drawers
Store things away
Any photo with his face

Except the one of the two of you
That he drew on a napkin at the pancake shack
That one stays on the fridge

But you'll bury the notes
All of the notes
Underneath the sweaters
That you don't wear anymore

You'll store everything away
Until he comes to stay in April
Which may not even happen

Who knows?
Things got so cold
So fast

When you sleep without him
You count the books in the bookcase
The faces on the ceiling
That aren't really faces
But the cracks make up the traces
Of people you used to know

The far left corner
Looks like your math teacher
The middle two faces
Are your mom and your dad
And the really bad crack
Splitting down the middle
Meets right above your bed
And that's starting to look like him

And he's at a party, isn't he?
You have to accept that he's at a party
Or he's out at a restaurant
Or he's at a bar singing out bar songs

Because though the hour is late
He's an infinitely more interesting city
Than the one you're in

And that's why you couldn't ask
You couldn't ask him to stay
And he wants you to move
And you said you would

But will you?
Will you really?

If you were going to
Wouldn't you have done it
Already?

When you sleep without him
You dream of calling him
Or merely texting
The beauty of texts
Being their light touch

'I miss you so much'

And he's barely gone
But time just got longer
And stronger sunsets
Mark the days

He's away
Such a different word now
'Away'

When you sleep without him
He sleeps without you
At least, that's what you assume
But you have to imagine
It might not be true

And you toss and you fidget
And the ridges in your bed
Become harder around your head
And instead of getting up
And doing something to get yourself to sleep
You keep yourself locked into this fight
With the night and the slowly sinking moon

Soon you'll go
You say
Soon your eyes will shut
It'll be okay, it will

Still you look up
At his face in the ceiling
Feeling like if you close your eyes
And let another day slip by then it's happened

He's left

And you wonder when you'll get to the time
When your mind will settle into this
Missing him

Because right now
When you sleep without him
You're not sleeping at all