For Artiom, Whom I Miss More Than I Can Hold

I miss you in the small cruel hours
when silence laughs at me for hoping.
I want your stupid laugh back —
the one that made every sorrow hush.

I miss your bad jokes,
the ones that made my eyes roll
but my heart turn cartwheels behind my ribs.
God, how I want to laugh and scold you
all in the same breath again.

I want your eyes —
those two dark songs I got lost in,
over and over,
like a fool who forgets the way home
because she’d rather wander your gaze forever.

I miss you so much,
it leaks through my skin,
it fills my sleep with the sound of your name,
it burns my throat when I try to say
I’m fine — I’m not fine.
I am missing you.
I am missing us.
I am missing the version of myself
that only your arms remember.

If you hear this, laugh for me.
Tell me a terrible joke.
Look at me once more
and I swear, I’ll get lost
as many times as it takes
to find you again.

by Onnaya