You said, "I'm going to college—I'm not dying", but you might as well have. Now you exist to me as the dead do— As a ghost; an old photograph; a sigh.
You haunt me in old Chet Baker songs; at four in the morning when I wonder if you still suffer from insomnia; when I walk down Broad with sweaty palms; or even that nickname—I always hated that name— but I liked the way it sounded when you said it.
And you're alive— picking your fingernails; breathing— when I can't stand the lights and I shut the door to let darkness settle in my skin; into my pores; in my head. It's then when I realize: I've never felt more human— and my heart has never been so raw.