anywhere but here

After all these months, I never stopped hoping that you’d come back, but I did stop expecting it. Having your breath freeze up every time the doorbell chimes or the phone rings takes its toll on a person, and whether it’s conscious or not, you eventually make the decision to divide your life in half – before and after – with loss being that tight bubble in the middle. You can move around in spite of it; you can laugh and smile and carry on with your life, but all it takes is one slow range of a motion, a doubling over, to be fully aware of the empty space at your center.