In the Absence of Your Company

No matter how much time passes, or what events decorate my daily life, one thing has never changed.  That is you.  There is this seemingly endless bond between us, that maybe I am the only one that still feels it, but it's there.  


You are constantly in my dreams, whether it be to bring me a hug or whether it's to leave me yet again.  Sometimes I wake up  from dreams that you were in and I can feel the immensity of your absence.  Sometimes I wake up from no dreams at all and I first think of you.  I can be watching TV or running on a treadmill at the gym and I see your face or hear your voice or smell your smell.  Sometimes thinking I see you floors me and I have to stop and hold on tight while the sadness and emptiness of your departure fills me up.  Often times I cry, big heavy sobs because I am scared that you have forgotten me.  Scared that you don't remember my voice or what my face looks like.   I think about all the times where there was no where else to go but to you, and I wonder if you still get that same void feeling I get when I want to turn to you but realize that you're not an option anymore.


I still hear you laugh when I am lying alone in bed sometimes.  I'll close my eyes and remember what it's like to see your face again after time apart.  Even on occasion I think I hear your old car driving by and my heart skips a beat like I am 17 again.  It was so much simpler then, when you loved me and I loved you and there was nothing else that mattered.  But things happened between the naivety of youth and the harshness of real life.   The betrayal and the heartbreak and the  lies were more than either of us should have ever had to endure.  And I think about what it could have been like if neither of us has such a wild spirit.  Could we have persevered?  Could we have made it to the finish line?


I still wonder if the box of stuff I gave you is tucked under your bed.  I wonder if those notes still collect dust along with lost socks and old t-shirts.  I almost begin to cry when I think you may have thrown it all away.  You were so in love with me and I was so in love with you.  Maybe it was youthful ignorance or maybe it was just what both of us needed at the time, but nearly nine years later, your absence is ever present.