Since You’ve Been Gone

To M. and the memories we shared.

Since you’ve been gone,

I don’t even know if I’m outside more

or if I’m just staying inside and imagine that I’m still on the outside.

I visited the café at the corner – they’ve just opened;

the menus are all new and the chairs are made of old shaven wood

but all I can think about

is how you would enjoy the wooden decor and the hand-painted walls

and how we would talk on and on about how coconut milk is not

real milk.

Since you’ve been gone,

I don’t know if checking my emails each 5 seconds had, naturally,

grown to be my happiness;

or if I had simply let it become a part of my happiness, grudgingly.

I remember your habit of putting smileys at the end of each sentence,

how you always say I should treat myself better,

how you never care for an honorific at the beginning of the letter,

or how you just end the emails with a simple period

like the story of us.

Since you’ve been gone,

I adopted another cat.

No one in my house like him.

He suffered abuse and now he doesn’t know how to act around human:

Just like me.

I wonder if kindness will fix him up

because it surely didn’t fix me.

I don’t know if I should wait and see the final act of this theatrical story

or if I should just stand up and walk out.

Since you’ve been gone,

there is a lot of things I learn

but I couldn’t learn how to trust me,

or anyone else ever again.