absence as presence

sometimes i feel the weight of someone's absence, a low-grade hum that thrums beneath the surface of my days. it's not grief, exactly, but a sense of disconnection, a feeling that something's gone missing. i think of the times we'd walk together, the way our footsteps would fall into a rhythm, the silence between us a comfortable thing. now, the silence feels like a gap, a space that yawns open like a chasm. and yet, even in the absence, there's a presence, a sense that the person is still with me, a whispered promise that they'll return. it's a feeling that's hard to articulate, a sense of being suspended between two states, two moments in time. as i navigate the streets of pune, i catch glimpses of things that remind me of them – a phrase, a song, a smell – and each time, the absence feels a little more bearable, a little more like a presence. it's as if the city itself has become a repository of memories, a place where the past and present blur and merge. and in this blurring, i find a strange sort of comfort, a sense that even in absence, there's still a connection, a thread that binds us together.