This Is How I’ll Miss You

I’ll miss you in the morning. Waking up alone is hard to get used to.

Fighting, and avoiding each other is a comfortable place. Even when we’re dodging the other person’s affection, pretending to be asleep when they wake up, it’s nice to know they’re there.

Now I’m overly aware that you’re not here.

I’ll wake up panicked and because it’s morning and I haven’t heard from you yet. Then I remember I won’t.

I’ll miss you when I pick up my phone because I know I can’t reach out.

I’ll miss you without you knowing. In a sea of pictures that are show how much better I am without you. Pictures that show some glorified version of myself that doesn’t actually exist.

I won’t ask about you. I will skirt around your name with mutual friends to an almost noticeable degree. I will tell them about how good it feels to be on my own. It’s a relief, I’ll say.

I’ll erase your number but it won’t do me any good because I can still type the numbers out faster than they come to mind. So I’ll draft a three paragraph text to you and consider sending it. Read it. Reread it. Change it. Sleep on it. Erase it the next morning.

I’ll miss you when I make decisions I know you helped push me toward. You’ll hear about it one way or another, through the tangle of social media and mutual friends and you’ll know that I took your advice.

There won’t be tears. There won’t be tangible evidence that your gone – other than the empty closet space. There will be occasional anger, because it’s easier to be mad than to surrender and just be upset.

I’ll miss you by retreating. Purposely avoiding parties you’ll be at. Wanting to see you enough that I will take extra care to make sure I don’t.

It’ll get easier, and that will somehow make me feel worse. Time eases the pain, but it’s also a blatant reminder that what we had will end up being a faded memory. I’ll hate that I’m supposed to take solace in that fact. But I’ll pretend it comforts me, hoping at some point it actually will.