As I walked up the stairs, I saw smoke in intervals behind the door and I stood there transfixed by his presence without a body and for less than a moment, the smoke from his cigarette became his spirit moving about in our room, looking perhaps for something vanished long ago

Like that orange from my table, which I still don’t know went where, all I know is that disappearances now fill my mind with the scent of bitter oranges and for almost a month after your emails stopped, I would keep one every day next to my bed and smell it after waking up but I once threw it out of the window and it killed a sparrow, perhaps, I watched it die and two years later when one night, you kissed me and told me so lovingly that I am very kind, I didn’t know what to say.

Have I told you that whenever I miss your body, I light a cigarette and watch its smoke rise up