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I really miss Patrick Swayze. I heard that song on the radio and thought of him again and again and it played every time I drove and I missed him more and more and then I saw that he didn’t actually sing it. It’s Eric Carmen’s voice but that didn’t change how much I miss Patrick Swayze. Eric Carmen sings hungry eyes and Patrick Swayze doesn’t but that doesn’t fill the hollow and can’t stop the ache. A dull sharpness. Then I remembered he sings she’s like the wind through my dreams and then I remembered those aren’t the right words. It’s through my trees and we thought that was such a dumb lyric. Who has trees. The we here isn’t important. What’s important is that he’s still gone and not coming back and I’m missing him so hard these days. it hurts to watch dirty dancing. he’s in so many more movies but that’s the one that counts. That’s the one who he is. That’s the one that makes me miss him more and more every day and when I say him I mean them. no, I mean him but a different him, the one who can’t come home anymore and who doesn’t sing and wasn’t in the movies and can’t pick up the phone. but at least I can go see him. There’s that. I can’t go see Patrick Swayze and I can’t pick up the phone and call him and not only because I don’t have his phone number but because he’ll never be there for anyone who does and that’s what makes this all so sad.

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Christina M. Rau is the author of the sci-fi fem poetry collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press, 2017), which won the SFPA 2018 Elgin Award, and the chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (dancing girl press, 2014). She also writes for Book Riot about all things book-related. In her non-writing life, when she’s not teaching yoga, she’s watching the Game Show Network.  http://www.christinamrau.com

Show Christina some love via PayPal at cmrau(at)aol(dot)com.