It’s been nearly a year and yet there are still nights when I come home from work late and I expect to find him on the porch smoking a Marlboro and reading or writing on his laptop. All summer long this has happened to me – walking home from work or the bar sometime after midnight with music in my ears and my bag slung across my body, expecting him to be here, expecting to kiss him hello after I lock up my bike to his/my railing. I don’t really expect these things, but the shadows are there, shadows that dance around my body as I pack my things and empty my cupboards and prepare to leave this place – this home that is mine and that was his before. In the last year I have learned to let go of a lot of things that I once burned into my skin, and that letting go has made me more whole than I’ve been in a long time, if ever. And yet – I still miss him and suspect that will never change.