Do you remember that night
The way my fingers trailed up your spine
My lips lingering on your collarbone momentarily
Your breathing becoming intensified with every word I spoke

Do you remember that morning
That way your skin glowed
Your lips forming the words "I love you" through the coffee mug
My eyes holding a lackluster apology for anyone to come after me

Do remember a week from that night
The way your muscles tensed under my palms when he called
Your voice shaking as you told me it was no one important
My knuckles turning white as i gripped the steering wheel trying to control myself

Do you remember a month from that night
The way my breathing hitched when there was a knock at 2 am
His eyes lowering as he showed the police badge and began to explain
My body losing all sense of surroundings as I collapsed into him begging him to stop saying the things he was

Do you remember a year from that night
The way my eyes darkened when I saw him across the room
How my breathing intensified as I called his name
When he asked who I was I could only mutter your name mixed in with jumbled sentences of questions as to how he could've laid a hand on you and why isn't he in that jail cell and what the **** do you mean he made bail because no matter how much money is in my pocket you aren't coming back

Do you remember me begging you to stop letting him do this to you
Do you remember me screaming at the top of my lungs after the funeral procession
Do you remember me leaving him a eulogy all his own so far in advance from when he would need it that he stashed it under a pile of letters you had written him that he would never read

Do you remember me loving you
Do you remember him doing everything but loving you
Do you remember how it was never my bed that you stayed in for more than a night.

C.a.l

And your words burned through my soul faster than a forest fire burning through trees trying to escape the buckets of water being dumped on it because I knew you meant them. I knew when you said you wouldn't ever be able to forgive me you meant it and as that realization fell through every inch of my heart I could feel it slowly being ripped up just like how you used to tear handfuls of grass out of that meadow where we used to sit when you were sad only this time you couldn't just get up and pretend you hadn't completely ripped the life out of something so fragile because you had to watch my face as the words sunk in and the worst part is you didn't even ******* care as you saw my eyes go from vibrant blue to as dark as an ocean before a storm because you had known for so ******* long that you didn't really love me and you just needed a reason to be able to say it without looking like the villain, without looking like the one who dropped that single lit cigarette burning that beautiful shade of red and orange as it caught on one leaf that was just a little too dry, you didn't want to look like the one doing that to me by dropping those words on the one piece of me no one else had ever been able to see and ******* you knew exactly what to say to absolutely ******* destroy me in just a few words and as they tumbled from your beautiful bubble gum pink lips I swear you smirked a little as my much less beautiful horribly pale lips turned into a frown and a gasp escaped them because those words left me absolutely speechless. I would've rather you just held the lit cigarette right against my skin over and over like you used to do in that forest right beside the meadow after you pulled out clumps of grass leaving them lay lifelessly waiting for one to finally light because that would've been so much more bearable and understandable than those three words that you let slip out ever so carelessly. C.a.l

the day I asked you how I looked in my dress, I knew I looked awful. I was curious how you'd word it and if you'd be honest at all. You were, but you made it into a joke and now looking back I don't even remember where that hideous dress ended up by the end of the night. Somewhere still in your room probably.

- when you asked if I was afraid as we rode up the first hill of the roller coaster and I said no, I lied. I was terrified and when you put your hand over mine on my harness I breathed for the first time in what felt like hours.

- I wasn't ever asleep in the slightest when I pulled myself into you in the middle of the night. I was having the nightmares again and you're the only thing that makes them stop.

- the nightmares are back now. I haven't gone a night without one since you left.

- I am irrevocably in love with you.

- the night I came over and found you drunk and smashing porcelain plates against a frozen brick wall and you pushed me against it so hard I slapped you and screamed that I ******* hated everything about you just to snap you out of that blind rage and then held you for five hours while you sobbed and whispered apologies into my side, I didn't just happen to stop by. Your mother called me because you were screaming my name at the top of your lungs.

- I hate that ugly sweater you always wear because it doesn't match your eyes the right way but I love the way it always smells like you

- when you told me about how I called you at four am and started reading a eulogy I had written for my own mother and riddling off a list of songs to play at your funeral despite the fact she is still very much alive and I pretended to not remember it, I did. I remembered all of it. And I'm still embarrassed to this day.

- it's been months and I still can't put my phone on silent for fear of missing your call

- if you did call, I'm not sure I would answer          
                                                                                                                    C.a.l

This is me apologizing. This is me finally coming up for air and coughing up apologizes instead of swallowing them down with gulps of water. This is me looking at your face and seeing the bags under your eyes because you stayed up all night trying to call me and apologizing. Looking at your nails and seeing the skin around them ****** and scabbed and the beds unevenly bitten down to nothing and apologizing. Looking at your eyes and seeing the way you bought colored contacts to cover the fact you spent days unmoving from a mirror trying to love yourself and apologizing. This is me seeing the needle points on your lips from where you injected your own blood to attempt to regain that color I claimed to be in love with and apologizing. As I'm looking at your arms and seeing where you scrubbed your skin with chemicals trying to erase the essence of me and when you smile I can see that you chugged a bottle of bleach to try and whiten your teeth bright enough so that you could be accepted by God himself into the pearly gates all I can do is apologize. I'm sorry that you spent hours carving my name into his back with your fingernails and biting your own tongue so hard it bled when he told you he loved you. When his flesh connected with yours causing the world to stop for a second and listen to your shrieking I know it was me you were screaming for and I'm sorry. As I'm standing here staring at you and watching them put brush stroke after brush stroke of blush onto your lovely pale cheeks trying to restore the life you lost so many years ago I'm finally realizing it's too late to apologize yet all I can think about is how this isn't even close to the eulogy you deserved. I should be talking about the way you danced and how your voice made my own falter momentarily and how you were more alive when you were dying than I ever will be when I'm living rather than apologizing but all I can seem to rationalize is how I spent years dry swallowing your love and spitting up knives to use to carve my initials into your thigh so you would always remember me and how I never even had the common decency to count to three before destroying you and I'm sorry. I'm afraid to look up now that I've finished apologizing because I know your empty eyes filled with nothingness will be staring back so horribly confused because I doubt you ever continued listening after I used the world eulogy and I'm sure you're going to wonder why I'm talking as if I'm sitting at your funeral rather than on the end of your bed but I don't know how else to make you grasp the concept of what you're doing to yourself by loving me in a better way than this and I'm sorry. C.a.l

You asked me to define happiness and I told you it wouldn't make sense if I tried.
You asked me to define love and I told you to stop searching for answers you didn't want to hear.
You asked me to define loneliness and I told you it didn't matter because you would never face it anyways.
When you asked me to define us I finally snapped. I told you that we are the very definition of destruction and your face dropped because I think you expected me to say we were love and happiness and the opposite of lonely but I didn't. I told you exactly what we are.
We are two souls hopelessly grasping at each other in the middle of a graveyard hoping we don't get pulled underground but anyone but each other.
We are the smoke that curls off of my cigarette that makes you cough and tell me I really shouldn't **** myself in such a slow and stupid way.
We are the two am fights and three am I'm sorry's wrapped in a duvet full of regret.
We are the whiskey bottle you throw against a wall at four pm and the phone call to your mother three hours later when you're beyond drunk telling her you're sorry for being a horrible son.
We are that stack of pictures that sat in the back of your closet for five years before you finally burned them without a second thought.
We are this mass of destruction and it is killing us both.
We are tearing us apart one definition at a time and ripping out pieces of our hearts along the way.
Every time you hold my hands above my head and whisper that you love me while I'm kicking you screaming that I hate you and how dare you get rid of those pills without telling me we are defining everything except love and happiness and God knows I'll never feel lonely because the memory of your hands on my hips will never fade.
We are destructive.
We are miserable.
We are not what love looks like, but ****, I don't know what else to call it.

C.a.l

I'm in love with you
But you're a chain smoker
And I'm just another pack of cigarettes
I'm in love with you
But you're an alcoholic
And I'm just the last shot of ***** in a bottle
I'm in love with you
But you're a hopeless romantic
And I'm just another red rose lacking compassion
I'm ******* in love with you
But you're reckless with things you love
And I'm that cliff you should've never jumped off of
c.a.l

The day I met you it terrified me. You ordered your drink before me and when I heard you mutter the words "whiskey on the rocks" I couldn't help but laugh a little. You, drinking whiskey? When you turned and your eyes laid on mine I realized that beneath the sparkly dress and winged eyeliner you were absolutely amazing. Before you could mention my laughing at you the bartender asked what I wanted and as I ordered a bottle of champagne you absolutely lost it. You threw your head back and gasped and rolled your eyes. You were straightforward and awful. You were ****** and full of yourself. You were ******* beautiful. I followed you back to your table and sat down without asking permission. We talked a lot. I remember you said your favorite song was Piano Man and that you hated champagne. But as you said that you took my glass from me and giggled as the bubbles tickles the tip of your nose. Six months later we were laying on the hood of my car staring at the black sky and you commented on the fact none of the constellations were visible as you sipped a glass of the same brand of whiskey you had that first night and I didn't hear a thing besides the way your lips moved and no matter how hard I focused none of the words formed anything rational in my mind and that's the exact moment I told you I loved you. I remember the way you smirked and kicked your lips before taking a breath and telling me that I've been in love with you since the moment I saw you order your drink and you were right.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. Now, sixty years later, I mean. Why now. Why didn't I agree with you then. Why can't I write what I should be and why am I writing about this instead. Why am I staring into your tired eyes discussing everything and nothing and why didn't I listen that night on the hood of my car. I do know what you said though. I figured it out years later. You were saying how although the sky was black the bubbles in my champagne almost looked the same as a variety of constellations all jumbled together. I know you won't remember this tomorrow. You don't remember anything anymore. Not that you need to. I remember that you like whiskey on the rocks and love the way champagne looks like a miniature universe of stars and planets and designs and I remember that you loved when I wrote about you out loud rather than on paper. How many more days do you think I'll be able to sneak past the nurses into your room with glasses full of ice and a typewriter with no ink so I can try to make you remember again. C.a.l