MISSING

I miss the tree in my front yard. How the branches reach to the sky with such certainty, like they are asking for something that they know the clouds will give to them. I miss my cat. How he swats and hisses when I offer him attention, but crawls into my lap when I’m busy. His tummy buzzing with happy purrs. The zig-zag lightning strikes in his fur. His soft, stupid little ears.
 
I miss my ex-boyfriend. His eyes that go on forever, a hallway with no ending, only more and more doors to open. The crinkle in his cheek when he smiles. Holding his hand across a coffee table. I miss my mom, and my dad, and the way they hold hands at the grocery store. I miss my sister screaming along to cheesy pop music, and my brother busting dance moves in the kitchen.
 
I miss a lot of things.
 
Sometimes when I’m in class, drifty and half-awake, my mind flips through an ever-expanding rolodex of memories. Little things. The outline of the blue ridge mountains, hazy borders that collapse into more borders, miles and miles of endless ridges. How cold my car’s steering wheel gets in the winter. Swing dancing on a scuffed high school stage. Riding my bike to school every morning.
 
And I know, one day I will miss today. I will miss my roommate’s searing laughter, how her whole body shakes when she giggles, and I will miss my window that looks out at a fire escape, and I will miss late nights writing essays and eating cereal dry out of the box and working as a theatre usher. Perhaps I am always doomed to be missing.
 
But you know, I think I’m going to become more okay with it. I think there’s a point where the missing dulls into something soft. Something with less teeth. Something you can touch, and it doesn’t hurt you. I’m going to get there. It’s just, today…I am missing.

yours in haste,