M-ssing

This is my last thought before I go to sleep. It hangs over the bed, turning the air around it crisp and cool. I toss and turn underneath it all night.

Something is missing.

This is my first thought when I wake up in the morning. My eyelashes have barely left their perch atop my cheeks before the thought rises over the horizon of my brain, sending signals to my limbs to look for this something. My feet hit the carpet and I push the thought away, stumbling to the bathroom, brushing my teeth and splashing my face with water. I have too much to do today.

It stays with me. This thought, this feeling. It feels like a muscle memory, like when you forget to put your watch on in the morning and spend all day looking at the empty spot where your watch should be. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel vaguely unsettled all day, productive but removed, my mind pinging and taking inventory; did I forget to do something? Did I take out food for dinner? Run all my errands? Did I drop the ball on a project at work? Did I lose something?


The day is brutal. I stagger home long after the sun has gone down, exhausted and heavy. After I lock the door behind me, I stand in the middle of my living room looking around and hoping something will catch my eye that will tell me why I feel so unsettled. I come up with nothing. I decide the only thing that can fix this is wine.

I open the fridge, the frigid air settling over my face, and inside is the answer so clear I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

His beer is in my fridge. His cereal in my cabinet. His towel on the rod in my bathroom. There’s red, heart shaped balloons kissing the ceiling in my living room. His scent still on my sheets. Instinctively I touch my lips- the last place he touched me- and his taste is long gone. I look down at my hands, having spent days lazily intertwined with his, now empty.

I close the fridge. I leave a trail of clothes from the kitchen to the bedroom, lifting the covers and tucking myself underneath them in one smooth motion. I settle in, the scent of us commingled settling around me like a hug. I inhale deeply, knowing I should get up and change them but not having it in me to do it just yet.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll clean this up.

Tonight I settle into a restless sleep, my body refusing to even roll over to the other side of the bed closest to the window.

Something is missing, I think before exhaustion finally overtakes me.

As always, it’s him.