doki doki (ドキドキ)
I hope you never have to experience what it’s like to be too tired to sleep. Or too wide awake helplessly trying to fill the void of silence with quiet words, with a swirl of thoughts.
We sit here like an old couple by the nightstand, facing each other with our toes curled together underneath the quilt. The banging of keys and the rustle from the turning of crisp pages are amongst the only noises to be heard — me trying to document this moment of contentment and ironic grief, and the sound of you devouring the words of some French author I’ve never heard. I can also hear the wrinkling of sheets with every twist and turn of your limbs, and, faintly, I could hear the sound of our lazy heartbeats.
In a moment I will kiss you goodnight, and one of us will be drifting away from the realm of consciousness as we lie encapsulated in darkness, reluctantly awaiting the rays of tomorrow’s sunshine. In a few hours the remaining traces of this fleeting moment will vanish in the presence of light. I stare and smile, but every tick of the clock seems to increase the distance between us by a mile, and the thought of Einstein’s time warp theory provides a brief distraction on my mind.
It is well beyond my comprehension how it’s possible to feel so far away from someone I can see with my own two eyes. Nonetheless I choose to remain silent, despite mental weeping being woefully inadequate for my melancholic spirit.
From here I can spot a chisel on a table in the room next door. If I carve my heart out with it, will it stop hurting?
