AFRAID OF THE HOLLOW


dear _____,
There is an empty seat at the coffee shop on Sunday mornings now. No one sits there and draws my attention from the window. There is no one to pick the food from my plate before I can even taste the first bite of the eggs florentine.

I have no passenger on the ride home. There is no excitement over the geese who colonize _______ avenue across from the too expensive town houses. And no one asks me to slow down to be nice to the car. Our car.

When I come home I am not sure it is home. The walls are gray and unwelcoming. There is no heat in the apartment anymore and I have to sit with a blanket on our blue couch. There are no feet for my lap, no fingers for the remote control, and no comfort in the deep cushions of the living room. Sometimes I can swear to hearing water dripping down great distances somewhere in the place.

_____, the life h as left the world and has been replaced by the hollow. It is not black or dark or deep. It is just empty. It is void.

I want my _____ home. I want my _____. I want.
What is there left to want, but _____?

I am afraid of the hollow.