I can feel your absence

Ever present, like the subtle silencing

Of a thousand echoes

Like my chest slowly starving

Each muscle contracting around the familiar space

I've hollowed out for you

Filling that space with every word you've ever written

With every not-so-subtle smile we share

With every moment of electric eye contact

I know you'll be back

I hope you'll be back

So I keep writing love songs

Tracing your name, your handwriting

Over and over

Trying to find pieces of you

Gently curving letters, like the gentle squeeze of your palm on mine

Seeing your gaze in the dot above every i

Feeling it like hunger

Sustenance in our words, slowly dwindling

I wonder if this is how you felt

When I was absent

Perhaps I'm melodramatic

As is the nature of most poets

But is it wrong to say

I consider you to be a piece of me, as much as my heart or lungs

And perhaps each word stumbles over the next

A semantic snowball ever growing

Trying to let you know I'm still here, waiting around for you

Waiting on that reconnection

Suddenly cataclysmic as I imagine it

Damn I miss you

But I'll see you soon my love