Standing

Another day, I’ll sleep in a lonely, empty bed.  I won’t hear anyone breathing next to me, won’t move the covers to escape their body heat.  In the morning, I’ll wake at a ridiculous hour and will lumber unsteadily into the shower and let the warm water rouse me.  Standing in the kitchen alone, I’ll drink black coffee and eat eggs on toast.  The only sounds I’ll make will be the rattle of the dish in the metal sink, the resonance of the fork skipping around.  Before turning toward my desk, I'll take another long look out the kitchen window at the gray, wintry sky.  Perfectly, it displays how I feel: vast, uniformly barren, cold.

Still, I’ll take another sip of coffee, shrug my shoulders and sigh to slough off the loneliness, and bear down on another difficult day.  I do this for me.  I do this for us.