Shifts
02/18/2009 10:36 p.m.

Today I feel the heaviness of loss. I feel the widening gap, the letting go of the details of our day-to-day interactions with one another.

Should I bring lunch for him to his new job? No, they provide food.

Oh. Is it vegetarian food? Sometimes.

How is he feeling today? Stressed for time, he needs to learn faster.

A package came for him from Amazon. I didn't know he was expecting anything. It's certainly not a present for me.

A strange number on the caller ID, a woman he wants to rent a house from.

The garbage can filled with papers he no longer needs, papers he untangled from a drawer that used to be filled with "our" stuff.

This is the evidence of him disappearing, ever so slowly, like a the torturous erasing of a chalkboard that was once full of things I couldn't afford to forget. I scramble to commit them to memory before they are gone for good - the shape of his fingernails, the curve of his knuckles, the ripple of his forearm muscles, the slope of his jaw and the exact color of his eyes, the smell of his skin and the way his soap lingers indoors for hours after his shower, the weight of him pressed against me in our bed.

The dogs are restless, pacing, sniffing at the ambiance as it shifts from him being here to him moving away.

The tears boil up from magma depths inside me, wracking my frame with explosive eruptions. I feel a cracking of my essence, my planetary self splintering into microscopic fragments. I'm sure of it, but as I bend to pull myself back together, I notice that

I..... am....... still....... whole.

I am currently: avoiding my homework
Listening to: the sirens wail on the street in front of my house