Your absence weighs down on me like... Like atmosphere.
Yet being with you
Seems to absolutely crush me.
Why?

Distance didn’t make
my heart grow fonder,
it just gave me a reason
to wander.

© Matthew Harlovic

when the telephone rang
at six in the morning
four days before Christmas Eve
   I knew
things were not right

they told me
   my father had died
   at three in the morning
   and would I please come by
   arrange for the burial
   and collect his belongings
at the senior citizens home
where he had spent
the last four years
of his life

they had rested him nicely
he looked at peace
I kissed him on his forehead
   like I always had
   at the end of my visits
and cast a last long look at his figure
   before the body would be taken away

    and suddenly I noticed
       how big his hands were
    they’d never seemed so prominent before

as if in death they sent me a reminder
of how much he had loved his hands
   for work   for play  for sports
   for fight and for survival
   to point and to gesticulate
      they held me as a baby and
         some times
      slapped me as a child
   they repaired toys   split wood
   built sheds   drove cars and motor bikes
   were patient and precise
   caressed and soothed and loved

they were his life
they held his world

my father’s hands

when I wake up from my dreams
   have to leave you
       then it seems
that the mornings are much colder
and I feel a little older
all these mornings without you

when I stumble out of sleep
   sad     because I cannot keep
loving images of you
           in my mind
and my body aches with longing
    for your warmth I cannot find
all these mornings without you

then I wish that time would fly
dream of mornings on which I
   turning over drowsily
find you sleeping next to me
happily can lift the cover
and come closer to my lover
oh, these mornings, loving you!

   * *

the presence
   of your absence
cloaks me like a shroud

I go about my business

yet it takes days
for me to regain balance
and remember that

   the hurt of missing you
   is only the result
of your existence

   the joy of being with you
   will be renewed
in the foreseeable future

only then
can my eyes begin
to smile at the world
again

          * *

Call #1:
I was excited. I was going to tell you about the new friend I'd made. She sits next to me in rehearsal and has a pretty laugh. And the girl two seats over who had long hair and funny jokes. Or the blonde on my right who had great music taste and a contagious smile. As soon as we had a break, I dialed your number. It rang three times, you didn't pick up.

Call #2:
We'd just finished rehearsal. I turned my phone back on, no new messages. But I wanted to tell you about our conductor with the sarcastic comments and the irrelevant analogies. I was going to tell you about the breakfast buffet or the church campus we were on. I dialed your number, it rang three times. You didn't pick up.

Call #3:
You called back! The conductor was calling us back inside, our break was already over. We exchanged mutual apologies and goodbyes. I promised I'd call back in a half hour. And I did.

Call #4:
We were finally out for lunch, I dialed your number. It rang three times. You didn't pick up.

Call #5:
I shouldn't have bothered. I had nothing left to tell you. I just wanted to hear your voice. I dialed your number. It rang three times. You didn't pick up.

Call #6:
It's dinner time now and I don't want to eat. I know it's late where you are and you're probably busy. This time I even stopped to listen to your voicemail greeting. It wasn't the same. I sat through dinner waiting for my phone to flash with a message, a missed call, a voicemail. Something to show you still cared.
And it did. I eagerly flipped my phone over, it wasn't from you.
I spent that day clinging to the hope that maybe you'd call, maybe you'd remember. You promised.

Call #7:
It's after midnight. I'm on the balcony. The air is cold and I'm crying. Even if you'd called, what could I have said? Would I tell you my ex girlfriend is a dropout? That my insomnia's come back? That I nearly fainted during rehearsal, or that I was actually proud of myself for only having four nervous breakdowns?

The one time I felt like I needed you most, you weren't there.
I waited all day for a call that never came.

I was going to leave a voicemail, on that last call. I had climbed onto the railing, looking down at the street. I wondered what would **** me first: the fall to the ground, or a broken heart. I called again. It didn't even ring.

If you'd answered...
Maybe I would've told you that I'd twisted my ankle when I finally came down from that railing. Maybe I would've told you that I couldn't eat at all that day because I was too hurt. I could barely fight the tears hard enough to choke back a glass of water. Maybe I would've told you how everyone stared when I spilled my coffee because I couldn't even see straight. Maybe I would've told you how stupid I felt that I was even crying over you. You're a friend, nothing more- so why the hell do I care so much?
Maybe I would've told you. But I didn't. You broke your promise.

And maybe I'm obsessive, maybe I'm annoying. But I called seven times, and on the last it didn't ring.

There is a void outside my window.
Pitch cascading into itself.
No. I am mistaken.
It is just night.
Someone was knocking on my door at some point.
Nipah. Nipah.
Nevermind.
A curious hollow groan runs through the house.
Perhaps a tap is being turned.
Hiss.
A moth catches in a stream. Wet dust clambers for existence, affirmed in the moment of death.
Sometimes it escapes.
There is a glow.
A streetlamp lights up the void, strong enough to reveal a small part of the world, but too weak to remove the grain. The noise of existence.
Blood rushes through vessels. Neurons fire.
Silence is merely the body experiencing itself. The self subverted into the other.
Oh. I have slept through the day.
A train rumbles in the distance, sonorous and bleak.
A bird cries out into the void.
Nothing responds.
A miasma blankets the city.
The choke of lack.