Because you always seem to waste
my last breath,
on your first puff
of a newly lit cigarette.

And that,
kind of hurts my breathing,
kind of hurts my heart.

Some things never change
    


      The circular stains on the ceiling above my heart shaped bed didn't exist under that rule

  Sometimes they *seemed constant
           And sometimes that made me feel ok
            
        But other times, as I lay in bed,
            Somewhere near the halfway point between laying down and falling asleep,
       I stared up at them and they moved
         Left and right
Ellipsing each other,
    Becoming ovaloid in shape

Sometimes they simply flitted away, vanished


    I thought them gone,
But they continued to return.

They would not be so remorseless as to leave and not look back to see the blank space they had left.

     So my little circular stains stayed for a while.

    I was happy looking up in wonder at something I could never understand but never dared question.

   Until one day I simply wasn't. My interest in the stains steadily faded until I began to drift off on my side staring out the window, searching for owls I could hear but not see. These sounds made me hope.

They made me open the windows I had locked tight.
They made me breathe.
    
    Those sounds lull me to sleep even now.

*And I've stopped looking for the circles completely

Ripping the pages away from my brain
And out of eyesight
I focus in on the pain
Its waves are soothing
They wipe away the ink stains leaving a clean slate

I DO NOT focus on the memories of every single word
Only the important ones that seldomly occured
Love
Of course
Without which where would I be?
Weak and weary watching these waves wash over me.

But these words are just characters
They die off often and can be replaced
But the memories they brought with them,
The ones of your face...

Are gone.

But your love remained.