You are...

You aren’t around anymore but you live on in memory.

You exist in my mind now as set of circumstances.

You are now and forever will be, the preparations and the compromises that made our time together possible.

You are that smell of blocked public toilets on the train from Brighton to London.

You are the overcrowded train that would whisk me to you at a phone call’s notice.

You are the cost of my travel and the weight missing from my pockets.

You’re that feeling of knowing that these three days I have booked off work are three days I will not be getting paid for.

You are the knowledge that my credit card will be paid off in five months, not four.

You’re the sudden realisation that I have left my keys in your bedroom, thus turning an hour long journey into a two hour run-around.

You are the £20 and ten minutes of embarrassment spent in a pharmacy, all the while telling myself that I’m not ready to be a father at the age of 23.

You’re the cranberry stain at the foot of my bed that never came out.

You are my crippling hay fever.

You are a blazing argument I had with my boss over whether or not I could get out of working a busy Friday night.

You are not the greatest thing that has ever happened to me

but rest assured: you are not as far down the list as you might have imagined.