You Sleep at Night,
But I Can’t
You sleep at night,
but I can’t.
I watch you sleep,
and it makes me ache.
You close your eyes the moment you lie down,
and I stay awake, watching your long frame.
It’s silly, but it brings me to tears
when I see you suddenly start to smile.
You smile in your sleep.
I wonder—where are you now?
Where did you go, leaving me behind?
To another place,
perhaps with another woman.
Now you’re with her,
and you’re smiling at me.
You sleep at night,
but I can’t.
I watch you sleep,
and it makes me ache.
When you sleep,
I don’t know if you truly love me.
You’re near me, yet not in this moment.
Even though I’m bare and pressed to your skin,
it feels like there’s someone else between us.
And still, I can hear your heartbeat,
though I don’t know if it beats for me.
I don’t know anything—
nothing anymore.
I just hope your heart stops
the day it no longer loves me.
At night, you dream,
but what am I to do?
I watch you dream,
and it makes me want to cry.
So the night passes, and you wake at dawn,
and I’m the one you now smile upon.
You smile at the light, at the sunlit day,
and I try to forget what haunted me in the dark.
You speak to me, just like you always do,
stretching in bed:
“Did you sleep well?”
And I answer without delay:
—”Yes, love, very well.”
