wear it like an old overcoat

Lonely roads and lonelier street lamps are chasing me down, rolling me out across vast expansions of arbitrary highways. Someone's discarded cigarette butt goes bouncing behind their car, and its embers dance frenetically before being sucked up by my bumper. I drive. Drive to forget that this old feeling is snaking between the gaps in my teeth. Maybe it's the onslaught of autumn, the exhaustion from work, or knowing that the only thing waiting for me back home is my limitless (or listless?) bed.

That bed is a canyon, and the echoes of my voice get swallowed in it's cream linen walls. My heartbeat is a whisper, soft thuds beneath my rib cage that sink into the mattress. I used your warm body to ease the stark realization of solitude that my bed brings, and I'm sorry. I thought maybe the slow pattern of your rising and falling chest might bring me solace. I thought your arm around my waist might let me sleep less fitfully. I thought if I pretended to kiss you good night, I could fool myself into thinking I cared. But I don't.

It only exemplifies my loneliness. And isn't it ironic how us lonely types seem constantly surrounded by people?

I know that when this road sends me down its snaking branches to my home, the only thing I'll be curling my arms around is my own body. I might use these words as warmth, weave them together and pull them up to my chin. I'll find comfort in their complexities and seek sleep like some undiscovered, uncharted land.