Sometimes I’ll read our old emails and feel you in my chest next to my still-beating heart.

It really bugged Charlie that they called me first to tell me you’d died.

Your sister said my business card was next to your mouse-pad, where you graded papers.

I felt like an imposter at your funeral.

I couldn’t look at you resting in that box looking every bit like you looked when they found you.

I wouldn’t meet your dad’s sad eyes.

Your mother’s hand was cold when she clutched at my hand as I fled to sit in my car and chain-smoke and listen to the rain.

I refused to follow your body to the cemetery to watch them lower you into the shadowed void they made for you in the ground.

You wouldn’t like the style of this prolonged ceremony.

You would have bolted after the first 5 minutes, without warning or apology and it would have made me laugh.