It came in waves, as it normally does.
It swallowed me whole, a monotonous storm of thinned wires and broken teeth.
I shattered them on beer bottles the night you left, I think, but I can’t remember.
It’s been a while.

I remember the day you bumped into me in the liquor aisle.
You were smiling, and you asked me how things were going.
I wanted to drop to my knees and plead for you to love me again,
But there was something holding me back and it made me wonder if you actually ever did.
You told me about what you were celebrating for, how she lights up your world more than any champagne ever could.
No, I haven’t been seeing anybody.
I've seen you a few times behind my eyelids.
I fall apart a little too much.

I found it tedious,
How we were drinking on separate occasions.
I was drinking to rid myself of you for the next 48 hours,
And you were drinking to fall in love with someone over again.
I wish she was me, but you’re probably happy and that’s all I need to worry about.
I care about your happiness a lot more than mine.

It ended in a quick and bitter farewell, and you left with a smile.
I watched you walk away once again and this time I didn't even try to stop you.
Instead I grabbed the sloppiest **** I could find and left.
Somehow your number ended up in my recent calls again.

It has been almost three years since you've left.
I still see your eyes in the sky.
Sometimes, I’ll meet your breath at street corners
And after all of this time, it still lingers.

the same echo that resonates in my fourth story bedroom resonates in my soundless soul and in the ashtray that sits on my window sill
it shouts memories back at me from when we sat there
too dependent to care
before we turned cold and the marrow in our bones began to blacken
before we lost each other; to the ache of life itself
i shouldn’t have introduced you to cigarettes,
i shouldn’t have introduced you to depression or illness or satan himself
you claimed you had been there, you're different now
i’ve stained you with what i’ve been trying to run away from
now you're running away from me
too scared of pain and the void in your gut, i see you in everyone
i see you in myself
and i see myself in you
and i know that’s a cliché--
but it frightens me and settles me all at the same time,
something i don’t want to feel,
you were my home, i don’t have one anymore
i live on the streets looking for some sort of temporary house
to reside in
the homeless nights are the worst.  
i used to vent my emotions to you without using a filter,
my thoughts, my routines, me...
i closed the vent now and pour the feelings into bottles labeled ‘don’t drink,’
i store them in dark, dusty corners
of myself, labeled 'don't enter,'
near ribcages and organs and sometimes i hope that one day,
when you somewhat heal,
and your therapist tells you you’ve done well,
you’ll get drunk off of me all over again… but don’t.
don’t poison yourself,
you’re too good of a human for that and maybe i’ve always been empty
but you filled my void, and i wont pretend that anyone else can.
somedays i wish you craved the toxic drink that i am.

a guilty wave of my past enters my mind
sloshing around, tidal emotion.
i see the man pulled over on the sidewalk fixing his bike for 48 hours and i see
the mothers walking with mothers, lonely but not alone
i see the ******* sun which i've been staring at for the last 20 minutes waiting to rise and i see you,
in all the ways we'll never be again
it's shouting at me to come home
but i've tried too many times
sadly missing you no longer comes in waves
i feel it in tsunami tides