i cannot say 'i miss you' because it's not true.
i miss school dances, excessively fancy dresses, vanilla coke.
i miss saturday morning cartoons and sugary cereal.
i miss playing pretend house and pretend office job, when adulthood seemed as mystical as santa claus.

no, i don't miss you;
i am incomplete without you.
there is something inside me that doesn't fit quite right:
a pit, a cavity, a depression,
that i've tried to fill with fantasy books and sad movies and too much brain space dedicated to song lyrics.
but you are the final piece, the hand that mine fits perfectly into
and when you're gone, i go from being whole to hole.

i don't miss you;
i am completely lost without you.
my mind drifts, wanders somewhere beyond my reach;
normally you are my compass,
my gps,
my worn out map in the glove box,
the back of my hand mapped against the stars.
no matter where or when we are,
you are the only thing that can guide me home.
but now i am sinking at sea with a cloudy sky and no steering wheel.

i don't miss you;
i am broken without you.
some of it is that you make me the full person i can be
instead of the shell i inhabit,
but the larger reason is that i don't see the point in trying to live without you here,
and i don't want to.
it's fitting that we describe it as being apart-
for you are a part of me,
and it's one that i can't survive very long without.

i cannot say 'i miss you' because without you,
there is no i to begin with.