I woke up with the taste of whiskey still in my mouth,
like it knew where I’d been, like it remembered me better than you did.
The sun was bleeding through the blinds,
cutting lines across my chest where the ribs ache still from that fight,
the one I lost before I even threw a punch.
I kept thinking about your laugh,
how it used to fill the cracks in the ceiling
and my stupid, hollow bones.
I tried to hold it like a cigarette,
burned my fingers anyway.
Every inhale tasted like you,
every exhale felt like breaking.
And I wonder if you feel it too,
this weight pressing on my lungs,
or if I’m just a ghost with a heartbeat
you can’t hear.
I drink to remember, I drink to forget,
but the ribs don’t lie, they never did.
I am still here,
still tasting you in the blood in my teeth,
still counting the cracks in the floorboards
where I promised I’d never break again.