The one I still reach for

I still talk to you.

Not out loud, mostly. In my head. All the time.

Something good happens and I reach for my phone to tell you before I remember. Every time it lands in the same spot, right under the ribs.

People say you're gone. Gone is the wrong word for it. You're in songs I'm not braced for. In a smell on a stranger's coat. In the way I say certain things and hear your voice come out of my own mouth.

I hate that I can't ask you one more thing. I had a hundred saved up.

You weren't just part of my life. You were a reason it meant something.