Whisper

As my world wraps itself around me like a gigantic serpent strangling its prey in an impending sense of ravenousness, my thoughts wander to you, seeking you out in the wilderness that is memory. I think of you, I wonder where you might be, where your world might be, whether I would have mattered.

Limited to a life that is a conversation between a presence and its absence, I conjure up words you could say to me, and line up replies in my head, if only you could listen. There is so much that deserves to be said, so much to be given life to, so much that could have been, instead I'm left to smile into a darkness and hope it curves its lips in return.

Powerless against the deadening hush of certainty, I ripple in the moment, and dissolve in your absence. The darkness that is you, that is all that is not me, embraces me and carts me away into its essence, to its roots, to its raging sun, to you. My presence and your absence, at last. Consumed by a nothingness that is neither of us, I lean in towards you and let my blurry thoughts culminate in a momentous something, three words that barely escape my lips as the cruel heavens plunder them into an indiscernible whisper. I miss you.