It has been a long sleepless night; you were not here physically but I felt your presence with me all the same. Every second of my night was spent with you maybe because I made you a ghost of my imagination; a wisp of smoke yet so real, so vivid, so convincing that I tricked myself into believing that you were actually there. I swear you were here with me - you were right next to me. Your hand was holding my hand while you slept, your head lay right in the crook of my neck and your arm was wrapped securely across my torso. Every now and then you would gently squeeze my hip. I took that as you reassuring yourself that I was real; that we were actually together and that you were right where you wanted to be - with me. I would say that I see you in my dreams but it is really as though you come to see me because you visit me every night of every week, every week. I only see you. I see nothing else, just you and me. In my dreams you're actually there - something I never got the chance to experience in reality and also something I will never get the chance to experience in reality.

Every morning, I would remember waking and always knowing that it was the day. The one that the four walls around me would be all that I was left with, although, that day I talk about is every day. I suppose it is funny how things work out like that sometimes. I guess I just knew that one day I would wake up and nobody would be there to ignore me anymore. I guess I just knew that one day the words I put down on paper and my unsteady heartbeat would be the only things keeping me alive; not you. I am tired. Tired of an empty self, of a vacant bed, of pots of coffee, bottles of whiskey, cigarette butts, ash stains on my clothes, burn marks on my arms, spinning walls, swallowing drugs, and wallowing in sorrow. I am tired of the commotion in the streets, and I am tired of the commotion in my mind. I spill out my words in order to translate this ache in my chest now that you have left. I wear you like neglect and cradle you between my cheeks like the truth I cannot bear to swallow. You are lingering and I cannot help but wonder if this was not meant to be our final goodbye after all.

I think I am giving up on you. I do not think I can face you while knowing that you do not care; that things are different now and that I always needed you more than you needed me. With that realization, I have been self-medicating to numb and using sharp objects to relieve because with such clarity comes the heavy urge to disbelieve it all along with hopes that I do not survive the fall - I do not want to survive at all.  I am scarred fingertips from touching you and the image of dying hope. I am a burnt out sign with vacant eyes and the disappointment at the bottom of every bottle. I am not what I once was but not what I should be.