In this deathly quiet I notice everything. How the air feels and tastes. The hum of silence against my skin. It’s icy warmth. I notice the sounds I hear. Where my stomach is inside my body and unease it nudges at me. I notice of the way the blood moves underneath my skin. I am so aware of all that is. And most of all, aware of what is not.

In a life devoid of you, I am completely awake and alive. Yet I have ceased. My body is a shell. My head is a cage. My brain is a walnut. I exist but I cannot be. There is no world without you. There is space. There is a field of endless dark something or the other. But it is unimportant. Living with what is is all there is to do.