Six months
of denying our existence.
“I’m so proud to say you’re not in my life;
I don’t know what I’d do with you.”
You’re the empty chair at the table,
… the cold side of the bed,
… the dial tone on the phone,
… the omnipotent absence
I’ve built my life around.

Six months
of no commitments, no definitions,
because you can’t define nonexistence.
We are a wordless nothing
consummated on a bed
of verse, novels, and music -
the only acceptable means of expression,
because you can’t speak in a wordless nothing;
can’t love or live in a wordless nothing.

Six months later
you’ll wake with bloodshot eyes,
frantically searching for
… the mind you lost
… the body you broke
… the heart you tore out.
Irrecoverable offerings to someone
whose existence was proven by their absence
and defined not by what they took,
but by what they made you want to give.