When I was young, I would steal the old cassette tapes my parents never listened to and record messages for the stars. At night, I would sneak into the yard and play the recording back, hoping someone was up there, listening. It was a silly thing, really, wishing the stars a good night as though they could hear.

After you died I thought that maybe the messages had been for you all along. It takes years, after all, for things to travel between earth and the heavens. Perhaps I was getting a headstart on missing you.

Now, I know the truth. That I was a kid with nowhere to turn to. That space is a soundless vacuum. That you are gone, reachable only in the moments I press rewind.