December 4, 2015
The last time we were together it was a wonderful day, the last day of our vacation, most of it spent in the hotel room we were barely able to afford. I remember it as happy, content and full of laughter. She was flying back to New York and I was going back to Chicago, I held her hand as we sat at a gate somehow equidistant between our flights. And when the time came I held her close, kissed her and let her go. She said she had a great time, she said she loved me; she said she would call when she landed but never did.
I was worried for six days and in those days I called until her voicemail filled. We only knew each other for eight months so and we had not met friends or family in that time. She had no roommate or neighbor I could call. The police couldn’t help me, macabre calls to hospitals and even morgues turned up nothing. From loving arms to nothing in a week and she had just disappeared.
On the seventh day, her phone rang as disconnected, and I had no one to call.
In those days I remember balling up in terror and sitting with an emptiness not able to let it go or leave it behind. Other days I walked in a haze or felt chained to the ground drowning in an inch of fetid water.
And the days passed by.
Then
Not dead, not hurt,