I don’t feel known by anyone since Bennie died. For better, or worse, he knew me.

I miss being known. I miss having someone who can look at me and know what I’m thinking. I miss conversations with someone who knew they were intellectually superior, but would hear me out, anyway. I miss holding the rough hand of an oilfield man. And the smell of crude oil and sweat on his neck, when  he held me close.

I miss who he was, before the pills; wild nights when we were beyond love and friendship. We were free, then. Together. Untethered from the restraints of man’s law, answering only to one another.

Of all that I miss of this man that I grew to hate, and love, in equal measure, what I miss most is, through the pain, and chaos, he made me feel alive. The stakes were always high, and the losses, devastating, but I could feel the blood in my veins as it rejoiced in the feeling of my own mortality.