Wintry

I step outside.
It’s another cool night
in October.
I pull my jacket
tighter,
and I could swear
I feet your touch
upon the withering winds.
It’s chill numbs me
to my very bones,
and I walk.
The soft orange glow
of the neighborhood street lamps
line the sidewalk,
now littered with fallen leaves,
and for a second,
I could almost hear your laugh
among the crinkling crackle
of the dead maple leaves
beneath my boots.
I press on,
and feel my skin tighten
in this arid wind.
I look up to the night sky
and I see the familiar
opalescent glow
of the silver crescent,
and I am reminded of the way
your smile looked much the same.
I see the same old patterns
in the night sky
as I saw in your freckle-kissed face,
and that smell,
your smell,
wafting into my lungs
remind me of home.
But it wasn’t a home,
at least in the usual sense.
Not with four walls,
but a beating heart.
Not with wide windows,
but two brown eyes.
Not a hearth,
but a soul.
I walked alone,
that cold, October night,
but you were with me
every step of the way.
I suppose
that just because someone leaves,
it doesn’t mean they’re really gone.

~LT