Some nights I try and remember the way your eyes gripped my shoulders when I told you I couldn’t trace my sins farther than Chicago. And other nights I just let the anxiousness swell knowing that I’ve kissed the hands that promised to wipe the fog off the face of this city, but lost the weight of a burden that held your tomorrows. This tempered love presses against my spine and I’m tired of your fate skipping across my skin like stepping stones. I saw your lips part at the abyss when they shoved that tube down your esophagus and I’m still not sorry that your bodies past tense. You told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, but forgot to mention it would be very different from what I’d become. I don’t hate you, I just hate what I am without you. Because we never talked about the way your mind would age like wine. Or the way your smile dug holes in the back of my throat. And we never talked about the gin hot and heavy in our mouths, two moist bodies pressed against each other an the rest of our lives. Cause blood runs thicker when you pull the thread and its the faces that crack that always fade the loudest. You said I looked pretty when my knees bruised from shadows and swore it was only baby scars. And when we fleshed out our hopes, I wove your veins into a sack and carried over my shoulder all the way down to Chicago. Well go on and wage your souls gentlemen, this grief constitutes as a war crime.