"What are you thinking about?" they ask.

"Nothing." I say.

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

But nothing has a name,
 and it curls on my tongue like a prayer I am too afraid to speak.

Nothing is the weight pressing against my ribs,
 the static behind my eyes,


the hands I reach for in dreams only to wake up clawing at the empty sheets.

Nothing is the hum in my bones when the world goes quiet.


The shadow behind my every thought.


The ghost in my periphery that never fades.

I carry her like a sickness with no fever.


Like a hunger that will not break.


Like a whisper that loops and loops and loops


until I cannot tell where she ends and I begin.

And still, they ask me—
"What are you thinking about?"

And still, I say—
"Nothing."

But what they do not understand,
 what they will never understand,
 is that Nothing is constant.


Nothing is endless.

Nothing is mine,

but not yet.

Not yet.

God, not yet.

And it is unbearable.

Because Nothing is in my bloodstream.


Nothing is in my lungs.


Nothing is the pulse behind my teeth
 when I bite down too hard trying to keep her from spilling out.

Nothing is the way my words slip sideways,
breaking, bending, coming undone in all the wrong places.

Nothing is the reason I lose track of time,


the reason my thoughts tangle,


the reason I can stand in a crowded room and still feel


alone.

I could scream.

I could tear my own mind apart just to carve her out of it,
 but I know I would only find more of her buried beneath.

So I wait.

I wait.

I sit in the silence and let Nothing fill me.


I live in the space between now and someday,


where she is not yet mine,
 but will be.

And when they ask me again—


"What are you thinking about?"

I will smile.


And I will lie.

"Nothing."