Track Marks

The last time I saw him he was high. I missed my physics final to be there and he wasn’t even at the airport. What got on the plane was something that was pretending to be him. The tears he was crying were something grotesque and fake and mimetic of genuine feelings. Crying to just mirror my own, a horrible perversion of something deliberately buried.

We couldn’t spend any time together and he wasn’t there so what did it matter? I was alone. I was alone for hours sitting at the terminal and I was alone for maybe days before. I could never tell. I always trusted him.

I don’t know when he really left.

I don’t know when his mind came back to him.

Earlier in the week I knew you were fucked up, your best friend knew you were fucked up. Your fucking arms were scabbed and bruised and obvious and you told me you were clean. How dare I accuse you of using again, I don’t know anything about what you’re doing, that I always accuse you of being a liar. Well, you lied to me. I found the pills. I found the bottles. I found the wrappers in the trash.

You made me cry, cry all the way home. Cry because I was worried about you and you were an asshole, a lying asshole. I cried and you accused me of being hysterical, said I had no right. I tried to sleep in your sister's room that night and I would have. I was disgusted with you then. But you told me to look at you after you had calmed down. You talked to me through the duvet I had over my head and you convinced me to look at you, slowly because I was adamant that you were an asshole then as I am adamant now. But somehow you convinced me it was alright.

Then you did it again.

You've been gone for three months now and we've been separated for one. I've been writing notes to try to remember all of the reasons to not take you back because sometimes I forget. Sometimes I see the hearts next to your name saved in my contacts and have to remind myself to delete them later.

You are finally good to me in my dreams and it's waking up from those that are the worst. Worse than remembering to not answer the phone.