Confessions of When You Are Not Here
I put the granola into the yogurt, straight into the container, eating the top layer with the smallest spoon and putting them both back where they belong when I am done. Later I find a piece of oat, singular and now soggy embedded in a layer
I wear your sweater for three straight days, fresh out of the dryer and wash it again before you return. I tell you I’m wearing it but not for how long and it is a special secret between me and the wardrobe you keep here
I stare at myself for long moments in the mirror, I study my eyes and the way my face has changed with happiness and I think about how you see me in the warm light of the evening and it turns me on and sometimes I touch myself, pretending I am you watching me or I am me watching you with me
I use your pillow every night but then put it back on your side of the bed. It is firmer than mine, it smells a little bit like you in a way that isn’t really smell but is the lingering of knowing
I make a lot of strange food and don’t eat it all. I let the compost get too full and lament about taking it out - waiting until you are finally 15 minutes away and in a flurry I do all the things I want you to believe I am doing
I smoke a joint right at the back door because it is still chilly outside, wearing my slippers and your sweater and socks we share that I’m not sure are mine or yours anymore because we have three packs of the same pairs
I write you love notes and well wishes in texts. I get worried that you are seeing someone else secretly while you are away on your business trip and then you call and you sound so tired and you have worked for so many hours and I find your silver rings on my desk and the basket full of your underwear and shirts and pants and your toothbrush in my cabinet and I breathe a sigh of relief and tell you you work too much, to come home to my arms where I can hold you and make us dinner
I listen to nothing for long periods of time, I sit in the silence and hear the noises of the world and my life. In the evening in bed, muted, I hear the neighbours having sex and I think about what they hear when we are making love and I get the scarf that smells like you from my vanity and bury my face into it
I realize it has only truly been three days since I’ve seen you and feel embarrassed in moments at how I yearn for you to just come home. You have become my family, you have become my check-point, you have become my first and last thoughts and many in between. I write about it, the notion of what is practical. I lay on the floor and dream for hours about the luxury I have in waiting for you.
I moisturize my feet and give myself pedicures and file my nails - I have always loved my hands but then you said you loved my hands and I loved them more for being noticed. Then you said you loved my feet and I have never really loved my feet but I made it a practice to see them the way you do and to give them the care of someone who loves them. I take off my boots in the park and you pull them into your lap and rub them while I lay there watching you watch the world; you tell me that you want your hands to feel the way mine do when I am doing the same so while you are gone I give myself foot rubs to understand better what you are feeling and how to teach you what I didn’t know I knew
I am always home so your packages get delivered here. I leave them in a neat stack and one day a water bottle arrived and it was so obvious and I broke the law and opened it to wash it with the dishes because the idea of breaking the law for you is funny to me in a very serious way and it is a small thing I can do to make your 14 hours into 13.9 hours
I send you long messages and write many poems and think about the romance of our existence and then suddenly I have spent an entire afternoon in the presence of your absence, dancing through my mind and thinking about how we would look from afar dancing at a wedding and if people would see a glow from our joy
I put everything from the fridge I do not want into the garbage. I don’t compost or recycle I just get rid of it all the night before it gets picked up and I never say anything about it because you are the kind of person who would disassemble each thing into it’s respective place but it makes me gag uncontrollably so I don’t do it and I never tell you and I don’t need to either
I put up the shelves I said I would put up, and you gave me wall anchors to do it properly because I asked for them but then I couldn’t find any of my drill bits to make enough space in the wall so I just put them up with long screws and hope for the best and I hide the anchors and I don’t even level the shelves I just eyeball them and style them and I really never think about it again because I don’t actually care if they are anchored or not I just care about doing the best job while you are around and then I tell you what I’ve done and you say “good girl” and I want you to come home immediately in that moment because that phrase has an effect on me that makes me want to be very bad in a very fun way
I get bored very easily and do not want to do what I’m supposed to do so I tend to the plants very carefully and I vacuum all the weird corners and piles of incense dust and I actually dust, too. I change the sheets and fold all the laundry and then do more laundry and most of what I do is to get the day done so I am one day closer to your embrace
I have long moments of contemplation - different from day dream - about how influenced I am by the comings and goings of you, of really any people I deeply love. And how in some ways I live so much better when you are around, when the carrot of your time with me is so close to my horses mouth I can taste it and I gallop diligently through all the tasks of living just to let time go by in a fashion that better suits my yearnings. I feel sometimes it is unreasonable for me to be so influenced by this. I feel wary of the inspiration put on me to be a certain way. Sometimes I pretend you are already here, doing your things while I do my things and we are existing quietly together and I get so much done this way and then I don’t worry so much about loving you so much
I drink my coffee out of your favourite cup so I can practice doing better latte art in it while you are here but it is a very bad cup to pour into and I think I will soon begin giving you my cup so you can have the best art because I know you love it
I do everything with the door open, I don’t like closed doors. I shower with it open, I keep the back door open while I cook, I keep the storm door open while I clean just to see if someone passed by. It is out of respect that I close the doors while you are here but really I don’t care if you see me showering and I don’t care if we talk while I’m peeing
I play a lot of games while you are away, things I don’t want to be present with while you are there but that I thoroughly enjoy to pass the time. I go through an entire season on my virtual farm, I become an excellent forager and set 5 new high scores in solitaire. It’s cold this week so I call no one and stay inside. I got my period so I go to the grocery store for snacks and order stupid things from Uber eats and I wear the same sweatpants with your same sweater and bleed through the sheets and don’t care about it at all.
I keep all the pillows on the couch and pretend I have my feet tucked under you
I do not watch a single episode of the things we watch together
I do not buy ice cream or any other treat that I would rather share with you. I bake something without a recipe and it is terrible and I never tell you about it because everything else I’ve baked has been excellent. I did use the bakers chocolate you gave me that you tried to make a mousse out of that also failed so I blame these failures on the unsweetened chocolate instead of us because we are excellent cooks
I hold myself back from telling you every single thing I have done and made because I know I will tell you in person and I know you work a real, in meetings and 1000 emails job and I want to respect it so I just keep a list of all the things like the candles I finally made and I will tell you them when you return
And mostly I miss you, and I want my hands in your hair and I want to be the big spoon and I want to wake up an hour before the alarm to kiss you and I want to see you in all your blues before you go to work and I want to pull you back into bed and say call in sick because I cannot get enough of you and I want to spend all day at the cusp of your mouth and I don’t care if we are poor or cannot afford the orange wine if that is the sacrifice for merging with you and I think all of this while you let both of us linger on that last kiss before the door and I always tell you I am loving you before your departure and I am never stopping before or upon your arrival