I can still taste your flesh on mine, as if my pores soaked in all of your pheromones and stored them in  safekeeping for nights like this, nights when whiskey becomes the only sleeping medicine powerful enough to soothe my troubled mind.
The memories come in broken patterns, like a film strip played on a rusty wheel, or like the thrifted records we would buy in the dozens - scratched and dusty, but still recognizable.
A kiss. A hit. An I-love-you. A shudder. They were all the same at this point.
I didn't know who else to go to but my mother.
My speech was slurred, elisions that made my words condense into one. Still, she understood. She had been here before.
She told me that days would turn into weeks, and before I knew it those weeks would shift to months, years, eternities within themselves.
I told her I didn't like the prospects of this.
She told me it would be okay, that all I had to do was follow in her footsteps.
I found the bread crumbs easily.
Jack Daniels was the only witness I had as I pulled the trigger
and I smiled in spite of the fact that until tonight, I had never believed in ghosts.

I have loved you for over
three-thousand (consecutive) days now,
and yet I still feel as if there are
two-thousand more secrets to learn
about your intricate mind.
I have a sketch of the general areas:
pleasure, pain, past, future
but I'm still a little fuzzy on the
specifics of each location.
I hope, with all my heart,
that I will have one-thousand more
days to love you.
But only you have the capability
of giving me that privilege,
and so with the best of intentions,
I let you go.
Like a bird, you will return if you love me-
if you don't, then I guess you never did.
They say this often, people, I mean-
"the other breed," like we used to call them.
We fantasized that we were different;
special in a conceited sort of way.
And I guess we were.
But underneath the facade,
there crumbled a dire misery
about our love,
and now we are where we are.

The end.

I can tell by the way your eyes react
to the words spilling out of my mouth
that we are no longer on the same wavelength.
There is not the slightest recognition
that flashes within your hazel eyes,
eyes that you gave to me like a
well-preserved replica of a masterpiece-
beautiful, but worthless compared to the original.
It's almost as if I can see my words
materialize into the air between us
and move through your body as if they
could truly personify the common saying,
"your words go right through me."
And even though we obviously aren't
on the same wavelength anymore,
I would at least expect you to pretend
that we are.
Because that's what mothers are
supposed to do, right?
Lie when necessary- it's the least you could do.