Pronouns are funny little things. I am lying on our couch, listening to our music, living, if only temporarily, in our space.  But if you were here it'd be your couch, your music, your space, your life-- I'd just be a character passing through, heading towards the door.

I slept on our bed-- your bed-- once or twice since while you were gone, but-- I dunno, I just didn't sleep well, I tossed from one side to the other, looking for your hip to hold my arm, that freckled space between your breasts for my hand.  I woke up with one pillow lying on the floor to the left of the bed, one to the right. They didn't want to sleep next to me either, I guess, and now I have to make the bed and you know how fucking terrible I am at that.

There's a weird deja vu to all of this, which I didn't figure out until just last night-- it's all so familiar, me feeling the June air on my skin and imagining the Jersey breeze touching your legs, your back as you splash in the surf, drawing up goosebumps.  I must have spent five or six weeks of my life doing this, feeling summer rush in, thinking about salt drying on your skin while you're away and I am stuck here for some banal, bullshit reason. I am so goddamn guilty of taking you for granted-- I'd stupidly assumed a lifetime to splash in the surf as the waves rolled in, the sun sets, June asserts herself.

I realized the deja vu when I kept checking my phone late at night-- what call was I expecting? A drunk dial from you, of course.  That's what's different this year-- you missed me the other weeks in Wildwood, you'd wished I had blown off whatever stupid job or court appearance or school obligation I had and was there to wrap you in a towel, in my arms, there to kiss the goosebumps down and taste the salt spray on your cheek. I don't think you are wishing that right now.

I'll clean the fucking house anyway, I don't care. It fills the hours, sweeping, laundry, dishes, to the soundtrack of our time. Mason Jennings, Ray LaMontagne, some Dylan, Toots & the Maytals.

It doesn't matter, I know you'll smile to see the house clean, and the bouquet of tigerlillies I picked fropm the side of the road this afternoon in Oley. The cars sped by so close that I could watch the people's faces, see their reactions to me, watch them make up little stories in their heads about that fat white dude picking orange lillies by the side of the road.  I made up little stories myself, about each of their expressions-- the pair of teenage girls in the coup were the easiest, they just looked at eachother after they passed and started laughing, and forgot about me by the time they reached their destination.  The smile that was starting on the face of the young guy on the motorcycle, and the clouds that gathered on the face of the old man driving the pickup truck, they were two sides of the same coin-- the young guy believing that he will pick flowers for his love forever, the old man knowing it isn't true.  And here I am on the side of the road, somewhere between the two of them.

It rained all week, but today was clear and clean-smelling.  I bet you finally got to feel the sand between your toes today, and chase our daughter as she ran screaming and laughing towards where the land meets the sea. Here, the fireflies are tiny, just lifting up from the damp grass and bushes, looking for eachothers light.

That's why I am writing, that's why I write. I'm turning my light on, my tiny phosphorescence in the big dark. I hope you see it, and turn a little glow my way.  But the night is huge, my light is small, and you are very far away.

But you don't look at me anymore, I mean really look, with all of yourself-- you haven't in a long time, except for moments, flashes.  And in those moments you are always joyful. Maybe I could be anybody, maybe that's what joy is, that feeling when we really see someone else, look across that gulf and touch another person with our eyes-- maybe that recognition is what joy is.  Maybe it's just another word for 'we.' I dunno, but those pronouns... they're funny things.

-jm6.9