convincing a child that someone is now
forever absent
from their life is a matter of
saying goodbye, wiping up tears,
and never seeing a trace of them
again.

as an eighteen year old,
i would have appreciated the child's version
of this ritual of persuasion.
instead, i got two-month intervals of
delay and lingering,
times of remaining identical
to the stale soul i had become.
i could count the intervals
exactly to the day -
two months was the longest
anyone could go before shattering
into insignificant shards.

as a twenty year old,
i have become skeptical
of the idea that someone could
leave at all.
i might not speak to them,
i might not see them,
i might not notice things around me
that used to define my vision of them,
but the absence of habits
gives absolutely no validity
to the claim that they are
forever gone from my world.

i have spent four point zero two percent
of my life with dulled senses.
for ten months
my vision was blurry,
my hearing was garbled,
my sense of smell was practically
ripped out of my body.
in this time, i forgot that:
there is a certain angle to the shoulder blades
that i find beautiful,
i feel at peace when i hear a boy sing,
a familiar scent can snap me back to
whatever year i first smelled it.
my lack of perceiving the world
almost convinced me that
someone could be forever absent.

but my senses have recently
come back to me,
along with all the memories
they originally created.
i can finally see the bridges of noses
and the straightness of forearms,
i can finally hear voices tip toe
around guitar strings,
i can finally recall how
comforting it is to know
exactly how the most important people in my life
smell.

i took this reunion of senses
as a sign to move forward,
as a sign that
i'm through with waiting.
my life has taken a turn
and i have swiftly started
on a path to being
someone no one knew before.
i have heard quite a number
of testimonials that explain
in great detail
just how different i have become.

and some nights that is the last thing
i want to hear -
that i succeeded in changing myself,
that i succeeded in giving up
what i thought i stood for,
what i thought i wanted,
what i thought was permanent.
i loved who i was.
i still love who i was.
but, i have almost been thoroughly convinced
that who i was is now
completely absent from
my current spirit.

i am learning to love my senses again,
even though they remind me of
how i lived the other
ninety-five point nine eight percent
of my life.

strangers can smell like boys i thought
were forever gone,
strangers can laugh just like boys i thought
were forever absent,
strangers can have the same stretch of shoulders
and the same strong forearms as boys i thought
would never come back.
and sometimes they take the seat next to mine
on the bus,
in class,
at a movie or at dinner.

so, as an almost twenty-one year old,
i have decided that surely,
no one can ever be forever absent
from your life.
the best you can get is
a deadening of senses so that
you no longer notice all the little things
that bring the part of your soul
that they labeled as theirs
back into being.