Now I'm left to wonder if it's fair to touch another heart, another soul, another being. No matter how many layers are cleaned off there will always be this one that stays. Permanent like a tattoo. A youth forever remembered by all the things I should have done. It'd not be fair to leave those black fingerprints on them when I leave because I don't think anyone could ever make me forget this.

And when I wipe my eyes clean, the black turns to liquid and runs into my eyes. The pain is close to how I remember thinking you'd forget me by Fall. But it was me. It was me that let you down.

Everything is quiet now. Silent like the evening you sang that song. And I can feel the way it made me feel empty because it felt like you took everything out of me to admire but slammed it back in when I pointed out the similarities and you said no, it's for when you find the one. But you were looking down then and I just realized that too.

And now you sing it to the one and I feel the ache again but it's different because you're not here and you never will be. And in brief moments I wonder if it tastes bitter to sing it, to feel those words on your lips. If it reminds you of the table that is long gone and the way the birds were singing in the cooling down summer evening air. Of how I had my hands gripping the bench on each of my sides because I was so nervous. And I wonder if they knew I was the first to hear you sing it. But there's a first for everything and there's always a last until the end. And I'm always the first that's replaced and forgotten.

But I'm only talking to myself here. Reliving this past alone. Drowning in black salt water by myself. And now I'm just asking your ghost when the air will be gone.