There’s a place on my neck that he used to kiss. As soon as his lips would press against my flesh, and his breathing would echo in my ear I would go numb in the best of ways. He would run his fingers through my hair and silence the demons that hide behind my eyes, only for a moment, but a moment was just long enough for me. I miss those days when the sun was up, but we weren’t, when my hair would fan out across his chest and his fingers would trace lines across my hips. I never understood what it meant when he would cling to me like he was poisoned and I was the anecdote until I was the one who was gasping for air and he had already slipped away. I crave him like I crave the breath of smoke in my lungs after I exhale a drag from a cigarette. He’s far away now, off in his own mind even as I sit beside him. His eyes rarely find mine anymore, mostly because that’s where he read the “I love you’s” my lips could never form. I never wonder if he misses me because I’m too afraid to find what the answer could possibly be. No matter how many hello’s follow the most certain part of goodbye is the underlying tone that means it will be forever.