I sleep without dreaming,
Willing my thoughts blank as paper,
Waiting for solace to become oblivion—
But these mental photographs don’t fade easy.

A weight in my chest like a stone.
A lightness in my head like a cloud.
I drift, tethered to the stone-heavy promise of your smile.
Days come and go without season or reason.

Sometimes I see you and wonder
Whether I did not fashion you out of my reverie,
Wrought you from a fantasy,
But then you open your mouth and shatter the illusion.

Beyond the pale irises of these eyes
Exists the who you are meant to become,
The me I am destined to be,
But in between us there is only a void—

Deep as death, and just as precise.