Where You Were

At 7 a.m. your hair did not clog the bathtub. The drain was clear. The cracked, green sink was empty of your blush, your rogue, your blue mascara, just how I never wanted it to be. Your towel—the coarse, pink cotton that you would wash and re-wash, though it grew ragged and thin—did not hang from the rack. In the bedroom, your lilac shampoo still lingers on our—my—pillows, though that too is fading.

In the underwear drawer I found only my boxers, folded neatly along the seams, just as you left them last laundry day. I did not find one bra there, one pair of panties. Your mother took all of those, even the ones I thought I hid so well.

The police came too. They took your pistol. You had used it while I was away in San Francisco. They took your letter too, though I told them they hadn't the right. Two-Hundred and Fifty dollars bought them both back. I thought if I could read your loose, black scrawl once more I could understand, but I was wrong. I showed the gun to your mother, but she refused to touch it. "Evil," she said.

I, however, cannot stop touching its rigid, cool body. On the tip of the barrel, with my tongue, I can taste the salt of your sweat. I can taste the iron of your blood. My finger slips so easily into the trigger guard. I can almost feel your finger there, warm and quivering, pressed against my finger. Can you feel mine?

From where you are, can you feel me like I feel you?

I wonder if, where you are, you are still sweet. If you still laugh at silly jokes. If your nostrils still flare when you get angry. I wonder if the fine, dark hair on the back of your arm still stands when you are scared. I wonder if you still get scared, where you are. I wonder if you are still sad. If you still cry.

I know I do. I could never handle being alone. When I was seven, my dog died. Buddy was my best friend, but he had to leave. Mom said that God had called him back.

Did God call you too? Did you hear His voice?

I ask because I think I do now; He says I don't have to be alone. Sometimes, I think it's you talking to me. Sometimes, I think you're sorry. Some nights, I even think I see you. But you're gone.

Almost.

Your gun is still here. It is all I have left of you besides your guilt, which touches me where I am, as my love cannot touch you where you are.

Or where you were.


(by Lawrence Lawson)