Who am I now in your absence?

When you said you were named after a star of one constellation, I began to grow fond of looking at the sky in case I spotted you there. I looked for you among the stars, in case I saw you next to a crescent moonbecause you said you hated its full form.

I kept looking for you, in my dreams, at the bus stops, on the trains; I looked for you in the sky above. I also looked for you under my blanket. I still looked for you behind the closed doors. I searched for you in everyone I met, and I would always end up crying myself to sleep every time I failed.

To me, you are still around, still so close that I immediately think of you whenever I hear familiar songs. I keep mistaking someone else’s voice with yours, perhaps just from the way they walk when I watch them from behind, or simply from the way they smell. I mistake everyone with you even just from the way they talk, because your eyes used to look at me the same.

You were all I had ever known. You were the morning seeping through when the sun was still so hesitant. I would see you first before anything when I woke up, and your lips would be the first thing that touched mine before I even grabbed a toothpaste.

You were all I had ever known. You were the moonlight peeking when the day was still so bright in the evening. I would see you wave your hands before I closed the door, and when your car started to hum after making sure I safely arrived home. I would watch you from upstairs, driving away with the lingering smell of your perfume that embraced me to sleep.

How am I supposed to do when you are exactly everything I know? Even after your unannounced leaving, and soon your uninvited farewell letters followed, how am I supposed to forget if the only thing I remembered from you was the kiss we shared that night?

How do I learn to leave everything behind when I barely have anything to begin with? The soul that I gave you, of which you agreed to trade it for the love you had; how am I supposed to continue life when almost entirely of me is now nowhere to be found?

I might be dead later—or sooner, I don't know. I might suffer from this heartache longer than I've expected—or shorter, I don't know. I might find you somewhere and blow your head with a gun—or kiss you goodbye, I don't know …

… because for now, I know that everything is pointless. Moving forward is pointless, not when it is still your name that I call when I am asleep. Not when it is still your face that I picture in everyone I meet. Not when it is still you that I talk about.

So, who am I now in your absence? In fact, I am your absence. I am the rotten bed you left, the withered flower you abandoned. I am the void, the silence longing for your embrace.