Shadows

Even when I wasn't with her, shadows of her were everywhere.

Indie music from the playlist she made me drifted up from the old furniture store.

Grafitti stickers that looked like her art style, peeling off from the traffic lights.

Lines or references to a show we both loved in snippets of my offhand conversations.

The all-dressed chips and cherry ice cream in the shopping aisles we had gotten for a movie night.

And I was in love with it.

With the music, the graffiti, the snacks, the conversations she was in without her being there. And I wondered, how was I supposed to live without her. What was I going to do if she ever left? Her shadows were everywhere, flittering and darting around. Everywhere, she was everywhere.

*