It was no longer a living room. I’d abandoned that concept, but I can’t say what replaced it. I’d opened the window, not even for myself, but for the apartment baren to let air in, releasing the winter stale. As if the excessive absence and the aftermath of my rush to enjoy the space had made it emptier still, and the only way to fill the space was to have new air. Yet with each breath, I felt it not fill the apartment but instead myself who had grown tired of being alone, hopeful that this window would signal to anyone who lived here it was okay to come back, the inclinations had passed. The words to ask someone to come home lost in the tenderness of loneliness which in admitting in any regard you felt that way is the poking of a new bruise. I did not know how to say it, but I was ready to be a person in the world again. Specifically, our world, which I had left behind where our living room used to be and was now defunct and something I could no longer place.
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