dear keith,

it's midnight on wednesday and I wish we were at crush playing free pool. I'd be getting you free drinks and you'd be smiling at me across the table while you put away all those drunk losers. maybe by now we'd be ready to go home, put on a movie, lay in bed together like a pretzel. being as close to you as possible was always more important to me than actually watching the movie... whatever it was.

tonight I wasn't going to call you but I sent you a text... "who is this?" you replied and when I said my name you never said anything back. I need to not worry about petty things like that. I need to spend less time trying to talk to you, thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and where you are... it's just torture.

it's so hard for me to be this far away because when I'm with you I can see every feeling - good or bad - on your face as soon as you recognize you're feeling it. with you so far from me it's hard to have any idea where your head is, what you're thinking, how you're feeling at this particular second... about me, about us, about life in general.

it's strange to me how important it's become to me to know those things.

I'm okay for the most part, you know... but it's still hard every second that I can't be right next to you. that I don't know when I'm going to see you again. that I can't even call you whenever I want to. I think most often about the look on your face when I noticed you were crying. the tears streaming down your face as you contemplated life without me. life alone. life without everything we'd built and the way it all seemed so effortless when we were together.

I still feel that way sometimes.

"do you think it'll feel like we're dying?" you asked me, all choked up with the tears you didn't bother to check. I guess it doesn't feel like I'm dying, but sometimes when it gets late and I'm cold and looking forward to another night spent in a big bed alone... it feels like a part of me is missing.

I don't know if it would help were I to visit you soon. I don't know if it's too late for that. I have to hope you haven't changed too much in the last couple days. that things can still be as fucking beautiful as they were when I was there with you. I have to hope with most of my available brainpower that you couldn't forget that fast. that things couldn't possibly have changed too much...

that things won't ever change that much.

that you miss me as much as I miss you.

not that that's even possible.