I do not miss you.

Last night it was almost midnight when I realized I had never given myself the pleasure of missing you.
I had warned you months ago, about my superhuman ability to let my heart beat just to keep me alive, not to love.  I could let you go at any moment and pretend you had never been inside me, never fucked me, never loved me, never said my name in that way you said my name.  I slammed the car door and I cried and I never looked back to watch your tail lights fade off even though it was snowing and the scene would have been eerily beautiful, heartbreaking, the kind of thing a writer like me would give her life for.  It was just you leaving.  And it was just my radio and the snow outside and the blurred vision not from tears, but the dirty windshield.

We never spoke again, save for the two emails you sent.  The first one ignored, the second one answered with a simple 'thank you' for eternal fear of seeming rude.

I hid you on all of the prying social networks, took down your pictures from my walls.  I still participate in casual conversation as if my heart had never been shattered, even when they bring up your name, a name that could not ever be mistaken for another person's name.  You no longer exist.

And then, last night, at midnight as I said, I lay awake realizing that I had to miss you, if only for the length of a shampoo commercial.  I waited until the commercial began and I muted the volume on the TV set.  I breathed in sharp, needed a cigarette right then, and I closed my eyes and I tried to miss you.

I tried to feel your skin against my skin.  I tried to see your eyes, dark and looking at me, through me.  I tried to hear your voice, heavy and maybe a little drunk because that is how I remember you most.  I tried to miss you, plainly and simply but I could not do it.


I slept then, with the TV still muted, the colors and brightness pressing pictures into the back of my eyelids like dried flowers, and I dreamed of you instead.  I do not remember the dream, but I do remember waking up when the sun first began to rise and still, I did not miss you.