I found you last night
Slipping in and out of my dreams
Silently sliding through hallways and nudging creaking doors
Whispering as you tiptoed through my mind
I found you
As you pulled at one string a little too hard
And I was suddenly overcome with too many "one more kiss" memories, too many bucket-list items never completed, too many times when we tried so hard to fit ourselves together but everything was just too messy.
I found you this morning
Smoking a cigarette in the back of my mind
Making ghosts with the smoke that you used to teach me to spin into swirls
Laughing roughly in the dark way you would when things went to ****
I found you
As you coughed a little because you forgot to switch out puffs of your inhaler with your cigarette
And I was suddenly overcome with an emptiness that couldn't be filled with Netflix binges or Extra-Peanut-Butter Reese's cups or even the ****** poetry that I scribble down angrily with an aching hand and a desperate, gripping need to transfer so much pain through a pen and onto a page and out of me.
Because I miss the way the back of your neck smelled like smoke and nostalgia and the way your mouth tasted like Dr. Pepper and whiskey.
I found you this evening
But I told you I didn't want visitors anymore.