Emptying

At the moment I keep thinking of when my brother used to run into my room when I was half asleep and yank my duvet away from me and I'd pull it back with all my might but my fingers were sleep-weak and I'd always relinquish, and lie there, defeated.

I'm also thinking about finishing drinks. Those last few seconds when the straw makes that sound as you savour every last drop. Or when you scrape the very last of the ice-cream from the bottom of the bowl. That feeling, of approaching the end of something you don't want to be over. The slurps and scrapes of sadness.

What about when pens run out of ink, or when phones run out of battery. What about stretching putty as far as you can, what about blowing bubblegum up to as big as it will go, until it bursts, and it's gone. What about letting sand fall between your fingers. Hourglasses. Impending sunset. Sunrise. Alarm clocks. Those last few seconds of sleep before you know you have to get up. You'll reach the bottom of your bowl of sleep and your spoon will just scrape you awake. And what about those dreams you want not to end, and those you try to remember but you can't quite, not ever, not really. No, not quite.

These are the things I'm thinking about. This is how my heart feels. I can feel you draining through my ventricles like sand from an hourglass, slipping from my fingers like a duvet. I am savouring you.
But every spoonful tastes of sadness.

If heartbreak had a sound, it would be partly like tearing dates from a calendar, and partly like the sound of air sucked through an almost empty straw. But most of all, it would be like the cold, quiet, metallic sound of a finished-with spoon, placed down gently beside an empty bowl.