To Love an Addict

It is 5:21 in the morning
and all I can wonder
is if you’re still alive
or just another ghost
at my beside, wailing.
See, Ive known you
for 11 years
and I remember
when you used to wear your hair long
and when you cut it all off
because you were tired
of being called faggot
out of truck windows,
and I fell in love with you
the first second you walked into the room.

I was there the night
you took your first pill
and you said you liked
the way it made
your knees buckle
and your head fuzzy and
it made you tell me secrets
like you would probably steal
a pair of my underwear
just because.

And I remember
when you had no car
and no home,
so I drove you to my house
for months
and you chopped up
4,5,6,7,8, blue pills
on my sad little white desk
and snorted line after line and
I couldn’t watch
so I looked away
and begged you to stop,
please stop,
don’t take anymore baby,
though I would never call you baby
because you would've hated it,
praying that this time
it wouldn’t be too much
and I wouldn’t find you
not breathing beside me in the morning,

And I remember
the three times you kissed me
in the two years we fucked
was only when I sucked your dick
in my apartment
with the holes in the floor,
and you had a car then
and chatted up that girl at the party
with enough pills in your system
to give you what you called bravery,
but still didn’t want to go home
so you came to me instead,
woke me up at 3 in the morning
to fuck me from behind
without any touches
so you couldn’t see my face,
more easily to picture hers,
in the dark,
and you refused to sleep in my bed and
hold me afterwards
so you slept on the floor.

And I remember
when you got your own place,
and you stole my mental health meds
like I wouldn’t notice
and you said you had wanted to die
the night before
so you cut yourself
even though you knew it was stupid you said,
and promised me you wouldn’t do it again
but I looked for more scars
every day after that
because I knew you had meant that the dying sounded
so good in your ringing ears.

And I remember
when we moved in together
and the pills switched to alcohol
and I would wait up for you
to make sure you at least got home safely,
forcing myself to stay awake until 4 in the morning,
and you would stumble home
after wrecking your car
for the third time
and I cleaned up your throw up
in the sink,
on the shower floor,
on the blue and white shower curtain,
on the floor of the bathroom,
and scrubbed the whole house
with bleach to try
to get rid of the smell and the memory
of your alcohol falling out of your mouth
like my screaming cries when you weren’t home.

But still the drinking got so bad
you were a habitual hangover
that I didn’t recognize,
a walking death cry
and I didn’t sleep at all
the night before
my first day at a new job
but spent it crying quietly,
holding my mouth shut
as the tears ran down my red cheeks,
rocking back and forth
because I could hear
your throat
heaving until you blacked out
on the bathroom floor
and I prayed again
to gods I didn’t believe in then
that your beautiful eyes would
look at me in the face alive
the next day.
And I came home
every day for a year
hoping to not find your dead body
slumped dumb on the cold tile.

And I remember
the night you came home
and stumbled into my room
and crashed hard like bricks into my chest
sobbing, “Im so lonely, Im so lonely”,
snot and tears covering my red dress,
and I said,”Im right here,
Im right here,
Im right here,
Ive always been right here,"
like the wallpaper in your bedroom
that you forgot was there,
and I held you til you blacked out,
grabbed hold of your limp body,
put you to bed
and slept next to you for the first time in years
so you wouldn’t choke on your own vomit
and spent the whole night awake
craving so badly to stroke you back home
with my sparkling hands
and whisper, “I still love you, a different way now but still. Please come back to me dear one,”
but got up early the next morning
so you wouldn’t be embarrassed,
if you even remembered any of it at all
and pulled your arm off
from around my screaming sorrow bones
and we never spoke of it.

And I remember 3 months ago
when you told me
you were moving out,
a week before rent was due,
and you packed your things,
never said goodbye
and left me alone
in an empty apartment
with no curtains.

And I know now
that you wont answer my calls,
you wont respond to my texts,
and you’ve left me behind completely
like a piece of hair you cut off
when I first met you,
11 years ago,
And now I know
that it’s hard to love an addict.