Thanksgiving Elegies

It's been two years since...
Two years of healing.
Two years.

Sometimes it feels as though you're still here. I expect you
(less and less now)
to walk through the door.

In the blink of an eye
it will be four years -
equal to the time we tied our lives together.
What will I do when the number of years
we are apart is greater
than the number we were together?

Does it mean they were insignificant? Does it mean they were wasted?
Or are they just four threads in the tapestry of my life
that are woven in a different pattern?

* * *

I miss the way you’d tuck your toes
under my thigh
when we bookended the couch on fall nights.

I miss the way you could dissolve
me into giggles in mere seconds
even in the blue cold of Black Friday pre-dawn.

I miss the way you laugh – like a little boy.
It reminded me that he was still in there,
beyond the cynicism and negativity, beyond the self–destruction.

I don’t miss the lies and the half-truths,
the self–doubt and the tears.
I don’t miss your excuses or that you thought
I was dumb enough to believe them.

Maybe the Thanksgiving will come
when I’m not reminded of you;
when I don’t mark time
by the number of things
you are absent from.
This year, I’m thankful for that.