It ebbs and flows. Your vacancy assails my lofty bungalow. I still pace those halls where we used to play hide-and-seek, where the throes of the world were but a mythic creature conquered and kept at bay by your fair gallantry, our make-believe infantry. I would mimic your pedantic voice, sarcasm dripping like melting honey, inviting butterflies. Your hands would ricochet with tickles. Now a raindrop from the worn ceiling, more deafening than our lost boombox of laughter. My ears prick up at the slightest squeak, waiting for the hinges to speak your arrival, a much-needed enchantment. Those halcyon days, floral wallpaper I ripped clean sit in a neon-dimmed corner, a dog with floppy ears lapping at spilled dishwater. Your dirty boots and the pristine ochre made quite the pair. Now contention is the only mop that gives the surly-looking floor some colour, but never the dazzling you came with. Now there is no you, the cherubic furball to chase away the umbra I summon like a butler, pumped up to stir my melancholic tea as I watched the cold breathe. The curtains, a suede waterfall, don't help at all, sharpening the sable. My mind found a stable to rein the horse within, since the day the wheels of your suitcase found escape. At times I fling the blasé door open to the realm that stole you and kept you, only to flinch from the tangerine regatta of spring, sailing into harbor after winter had wrung me dry. Its touch scorches me. Its sound mocks me. Its mere sight angers. How can the world remain beautiful when the river of my sadness fills the rim? The dam cracks. And I crack with it.