How does being absent
only make your presence more
imposing? I remind myself of your boyish
frame, the way your shoulder is level
with mine. But somehow
you’ve become a skyscraper. A shadow living
in the periphery of my vision.
I try to vanish my feelings
of delusion, re-read a birthday message to
serve as a reminder, I didn’t hallucinate
our tender bond.
A seminal phantom in life, you brought me first experiences
of grief. In cursed
adolescence, I sat in the pew and watched you
falter at your mother’s funeral. I cherished you then
as I cherished you at twenty-three.
Stomach sick, unrequited ache.
Even when we materialized romance from
lifelong friendship, spent weekends together,
loneliness loomed. You kept me
at restless perimeter, believing
I couldn’t reach you
because I was unworthy, framed you on a lifelong
pedestal as too cool, too smart to see me. But now
I know your distance is a worn identity, one you owe more
loyalty to than you could offer me.
I’ve transformed since your final text, charmed
my skin with more rebel ornaments. Got a haircut
and a stable partner that doesn’t drift or vanish
in a capricious shroud. Stopped seeking
answers, I even gift understanding
to the scar of you.
Yet, there are tantrums of journal pages screaming
your name. Your imp face
greets me in meditations, haunts me in dreams.
Of course it does. I fell in love with an untouchable
apparition. Forced myself to swallow a lifetime
of affections, now they overflow
in ink. I greet your absence with these words, compose lines where we don’t
break. In secrecy, and humiliation, I try
to conjure your response.