You Should Know

by Logen Cure, on presence

Your absence bothers me.

Your absence bothers me like most people's presence bothers me. It's like I'm always trying to get your absence to leave the room, to quiet down, to stop embarrassing itself.

It is not an issue of emptiness but rather an issue of a room filled with the lack of you, sounds interrupted by the fact that your voice is not there.

Your absence presses against the walls, creates pressure, the clocks tick slower, apprehensive, waiting.

I feel as though I have consumed too much and absorbed too little.

I am always-as-ever distracted, carefully choking on air heavy with loss.

I would say I miss you but that would imply some part of me is missing when you’re not there, and that just isn't true.

I am just extraordinarily aware of the places I have kept you: between the bones in my knuckles, under the collar of my shirt, within every waking dream.

I carry you, even when you are gone.