(i listen to your voicemail like it’s a song)

I

i drafted out the text i was going to send to you

in my notes app and kept it there

then decided to play the sims instead.

i built a man that looked like you

but with better sense, and traits

that would make him want me.

II

we exist more in words

than we did in life.

this page is all i cling to now.

i stroke the length of my pen

to summon you, to make you

three-dimensional.

i don’t know how much of you is ink,

salvaged from broken hope.

i don’t know if you’d recognise yourself

in my version of you.

i don’t know how long i can loot our time

before the resources dry up.

i don’t know if it keeps us alive,

or eulogises us.