Missing Shirley still

It’s been nearly seven months. I wrote this when it was just three months since I last saw you and I still find myself thinking like this.

It’s raining again

On a night like tonight we would have made a big deal about locking all the doors, running frightened from room to room. With every flash of lightening we would freeze,  then tip-toe to our bedroom with hot tea to watch the lightening. We would have sat up late, with you sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed and me with my tea in my lap, talking philosophy, brainstorming, or giggling. If I had done something wrong that day, you would forget it at the first crackle roving round the sky and run to my side. For a night I would have been blissfully forgiven, and we’d fall asleep to the rain on the metal roof. 

You’re gone and it’s not about me growing up; I didn’t grow out of you. It’s about both of us needing to move on. I’ll defend you, I promise. 

I want to remember.

I love you. Still. Even though you’re gone. I can’t explain what you were to me, there’s no name for that. To borrow language from the MPD community, you were part of the system. I was me and you were you but together we were part of the self.