this was the year i thought i may have finally lost you.
for months i've had eyes peeled in quiet moments and, like with much these days, struggled to discover more attention for it than the 5-year-old ever commits to anything.
and then i thought, surely. surely you aren't truly gone. surely you'll pop back into existence - a true existence, not a fleeting puff of breath into the night - and surely you'll be you and the ship will be right.
i thought. and i guess i worried.
then today i plugged into you. my fingers gingerly felt around the piece of you wedged in my heart. there was no pain. it felt a little hollow, like a cough two weeks after the virus has gone. press a little harder? nothing hurts.
but your spot is still there - the scars still cutting imperfect patterns - and when i heard you sing after all these years (years!), your voice settled right into that place. nestled like a child into a spot that could never fit another.
and then i searched everywhere in your life for traces of me and found less than nothing.
