To miss you means you’re here.

I thought of you today.

In between carefully selected and codified words and haphazardly dashed phrases, explanations and explorations, right here in between a pair of oddly matched lines of text, you came to mind. And you wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t leave me to my thoughts alone.

I thought I felt sad, but you shook your head. I thought I felt lonely, but you shook your head. I thought I felt weary, but you shook your head.

I tried to put a name to my feeling and a face to your memory but you hid in the shadows and dodged me. You were there, though. I’m a man of no regret, but it’s funny feeling this: to miss you means I have to bring you here again, here in my mind and in my memory. To miss you means I have to smell you in the room, hear you from up the stairs, close my eyes and read the words you left scribbled in the dark. To miss you means you’re here.

And when I think of you today I don’t know who you are. I don’t know if I am. I write about these things. I write about this feeling. It’s an ache, it’s a distance between the you in my mind and the you out there. It’s the space between what is and what we want it to be.

I don’t know why we fight. I don’t know why we fought. I can list out a hundred reasons but when you get right down to it, we’re no closer to knowing. But here’s my open wound. If you were to ask me, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you who cut me open or why it’s here. I don’t know why I feel this way.

I could ask those questions. But you’d just shake your head no.

So I’ll just sit here, and show you my scar, and smile.