It has been almost two months since I last felt the energy of your lips against mine;
I've forgotten for the most part the way they tasted after you smoked a cigarette out on your balcony in the cold.

I've learned by now that I'm at peace when I suppress the memories and pretend you do not exist.

That probably isn't healthy but at least it helps keep your ghosts at bay.

Some thoughts, though, are etched into my memory due to how much I tried to remember every little detail while we were together
otherwise I knew I'd forget-
how your pupils expanded and contracted,
how the sky looked,
how much the air weighed-
You and I both smoke often and don't put much faith in our memory but I'd be ****** if I didn't try to remember.

I think I tried so hard because deep down I knew what we had,
whatever we were
was temporary-
but it was pure,
and it was rare,
and it was so beautiful.

I desperately tried to remember you sitting there beside me the first night we were alone together,
walking around downtown and passing back and forth pineapple ***** in a bottle of mountain dew,
picking each others' brains,
talking about our past.

We became inseparable within days.

As puzzle pieces, we fit perfectly.
Even our friends thought we would be great together,
you and I both **** well knew it.

I still remember how far away you looked as you played the song you composed on the piano and that it was so ******* beautiful I tried to hide my eyes that were welling with tears.

I didn't care that you weren't really mine as long as I was still falling asleep in your bed and feeling you move closer and drape your arm over my waist in the wee hours of the morning.

Peering out of your window half asleep, I had the perfect view of the sky.
I'd watch the sun rise and look over at you and I felt like I was finally home, which was a relief since I felt unwelcome at every single place I had ever lived.

One night, your friend drove you over to my house;
you had drunkenly texted me saying you wanted a kiss.
I sat on the couch and anticipated your arrival,
trying to calm my pulse,
not having a **** clue the end was rapidly approaching.

After all, it's hard to see the end of the road sign when you're too busy looking at the breath-taking scenery.

Lying next to me on my bed in the dark,
you touched my face and whispered, "I think that deep down, even if we're not together, you are mine... and I am yours," and I believed you because I was always told that the truth comes out when the drinks go down.

We were so sweet to one another; taking each other's temperature while we were sick and lying together in bed just talking for hours on end.
We agreed time flew with one another. We kissed and laughed so much.
I was content.
I thought you were too.

We stopped seeing each other as much,
Our conversations dwindled and I could feel you losing interest.

I watched you slip from my fingers and I couldn't do a **** thing about it.

Less than a month later, I went over to your apartment and you were high on the couch with your coworker's legs draped over your lap; the same girl I tried to befriend.

I looked away from the eyesore but you pulled me back in with torturous small talk.
I did my best to seem relaxed but my thoughts were burning into my exhausted brain,
how could you?
I cared after you and you repaid me by rubbing salt into the wound.

I knew then that I had lost you and I did everything I could not to shut down completely.

My autopilot is a reckless flier;
always has been,
probably always will be.

But despite the sharp turns and rough landing, I have been going to bed before 8 am and remembering to eat.
I have been taking my vitamins and drinking water.
I have been getting high with my friends and trying not to think of your voice.

As ****** as it sounds, sleeping in the bed of someone new helps speed up the healing process, or numb the same wound that won't heal- I can't tell.

I know people are meant to enter and walk out of our lives at precise moments and that there are lessons to be learned in everything,
but I still don't understand.

I guess these things just happen
but gee, I wasn't expecting it'd be over so soon.

We never had closure and we're both with someone new now so these words, words, words are pointless,
but as long as they are still flowing, they are still alive which gives them purpose.

And that is a thing worth writing about.

We were a thing worth writing about.

My thoughts compensate for the lack of noise.
Here is to cough syrup and all things alike.

If you want to know the truth, the first dose was to stop the wheezing in my lungs,
and the second was to put an end to the sinking in my gut.

I miss watching your fingers dance across the keys of your keyboard and I miss the same fingers that would lift my shirt and dig into my back.

Yours is the only secondhand smoke I would gladly inhale until the cancer crept up and took us both.

I would be honored to drown in a sea of you and your demons.

How do you say goodbye to someone you can not live without?

I've been a construction worker
My entire adult
Life.

Still, I cannot
Seem to rebuild
Her confidence.

I've been a poet for
As long as I can
Remember,

But my encouraging
Hollow-point-words shatter
Against her insecure kevlar.

Suppose all I can be is
Sunlight, water and
Soil.

I'll try that; I've been a
Farmer's boy since
Birth.

Cast an indifferent overcast
upon the coarse gray sands
around my sunken feet imprinted
on the earth grounded by gravity
tortured to look above towards
shrouding skies of hoary scale
with earthly sounds of depths
crashing without compromise
sprinkling comets of aftermath
over my pale bristled skin
shuddering convulsing trembling
in fear of this darkened oblivion.