When Absence is Presence

(Photo by Sergey Causelove)

You are here even though you’ve been gone for four days. 

You swim up my fallopian tubes. You wait inside me patiently, eager for an egg to release so you can have a meeting—significant in its essence, that joined endeavor for life. 

In a flurry of fuzzy static, we came at the same time—bodies at the edge of disappearance. I felt your heat spread through me, into my loose arms and down racy fingertips. The stars lurched as our bodies ascended, then descended; a slow-motion fall. My eyes turned luminous; I could see through walls. 

Even now, you are near. You are in the soreness that was an openness. I feel you when I sit down, and especially when I bend over. You are a small, tangy bite of pain. 

You made an oasis inside me, and now you are gone to another island. But I am full—full of your spice-laden sweat, clove-tinged breath, cool spit, and warm cum. Full of your fluids, and body, and everything I’d find grotesque to receive from any other man. Only you. I swore it because I’d meant it. 

Before you departed, a butterfly in a lilac shawl danced outside our window. “Look, for you!” I said, pointing to the tiny dancer.  “For us,” you responded, then swung your bag over your shoulder before walking out the door.