You

you have dropped off my evening posts. You have slumped out of my conversations. You have drifted slowly away, but I still hold you at a little distance like a favourite toy boat held fast with a piece of string. I feel the tug and pull of you as you float in a different direction.

I will not let go, but if I did, I wonder if I would find that it was you, toy boat, who was holding the string. I am but a person drifting along in your wake. Sometimes you tug at me. Heartstrings throbbing in unfortunate sympathetic vibrations. Sometimes you are rough and I turn my back and pretend that I don't know you are just there at an easy distance, close enough for me to call out to you.

So I am lonely without you now and yet you are still there in the moments before sleep, still sharing my silent conversations when my mind wanders towards that kind of thing. I think of you often but things are different now. Sadly. Achingly at a little distance.