howling her name

“what i remember most is howling her name, throwing it into the dark like it still owed me an answer, like enough noise could call her back the way thunder calls the rain. i want to know her again, not the version i've rebuilt from memory, patched together from good angles and forgiving light, but her, whole and unedited, the way she was before i started missing her on purpose. i want her games back too, the way she'd go quiet just to watch me chase the silence, the way her laugh would land a beat too late, like she'd already decided how much of herself to give me before i'd even asked for it. and her tricks, i used to call them mysterious. now i think they were just doors she kept open a crack, wide enough to make me believe, never wide enough to let me through. i want to go back to the nights we met and know her again, before i learned the difference between being chosen and being kept around. but wanting is its own kind of howling, a sound thrown out on faith, and some nights i still catch myself doing it, quiet now, just under my breath, calling a name into a dark that never once learned how to call back.”