Some people are defined more by their absence than by their presence, their vacancy having more intensity and power than their being. When these people leave you, their absence acquires distinctive characteristics that their presence never possessed. The presence of their absence assumes a reality all of its own, becoming almost tangible. You find yourself developing meaningful and happy relationships with the vacuities you never enjoyed when in the presence of the actualities.
Other people exist only as outlines, defined by the presence of others around them and when the others are gone, these people fade into nothingness.
"I saw a face in a passing car that looked like someone I once knew. It's like that when you move on to other places in your life. Memories of faces fading like thin ice sheets on winter sidewalk puddles. They melt, become only a part of the water so you can't separate them ever again. But they do remain there." July 25th 1976
David Wojnarowicz, In the Shadow of the American Dream, 1998
