When absence takes precedence over presence,

When words unsaid echo louder than spoken sentences.

Is it in the rise and fall of my chest, can you see it?

The way that I instantly get more anxious.

Is it in the ins and outs of my breath, can you hear it?

The days left until I leave.

Your own chosen omission does not go unnoticed.

Oliver once asked me if you had left,

To which I replied, “mentally, yes.”

To which I should have replied, “emotionally, and in every way but physically, he is no longer present in the places he used to be.”