the morning crawls in
like an old lover—
too proud to apologize,
too familiar to push away.

I light the cigarette,
the only friend I trust
to show up on time.
ash falls like the years I wasted
chasing women who smelled like
wet matches,
jobs that paid me in ulcers,
and nights that disappeared
into bottles
emptier than I’ll ever admit.

but the world doesn’t ask.
it just watches,
waiting for the moment you fold
like a bar napkin
so it can laugh,
lean in close,
and say,
“what did you expect?”

I’ve loved people like that.
they took pieces of me
like souvenirs from a war
they never fought,
and left me
trying to stand
on a foundation
of broken bottles
and borrowed apologies.

and yet—
on some nights,
when the moon is just a witness
and not a judge,
I still want to live.
not for redemption,
or revenge,
but to see the way
a child laughs
like they’ve never
been lied to.

or to hear the sound
of a stranger crying
in the next apartment over
and know
I’m not the only one
that’s trying
to make sense of all this.

but then it hits me—
the hardest truth of all:
I don’t want the pain to stop.
I just want it
to mean something.