Since you’ve been gone…

I've had twenty-three cups of coffee, I've taken seventeen showers and I've rearranged the living room three times. On my way home last week I stopped to pick up a free coffee table from someone's front yard and traded it for the one I bought (and loved) a few months ago. but the change was nice. I keep changing things intentionally (the order of the soaps in the shower, where I put my scrunchies, the way the fruit is displayed in the kitchen, where the candles burn). I've texted a couple of questionable people, promised my friends I'm doing alright, bought a new hair straightener, and haven't written a single poem. I just keep making lists and scratching tally marks into notebook paper; counting trips to the grocery store (four) and new spiderwebs (seven) and all the times I've habitually looked up from my laptop to tell you something before remembering I'm the only one here (nine).

Time lately has been moving like a raindrop on a car window, like a slow pull with no distinguishable beginning or middle or end. The days of the week have turned obsolete; there is no difference between Thursday and Sunday. I watch myself move through my responsibilities and question why I miss you in such a passive way. I am not troubled by the continual turning of the earth or the fact that your door handle has grown dusty. This space just feels unsettled; like a tree was uprooted, and though the landscape wasn't devastated, it still left a mark.