It is freezing outside even though it is mid July. I have a stoop outside my apartment, well I guess that is what you would call it. The cars rush by on the street, and I watch them wondering if they are happy, if they know what it feels like to be okay. I bring the cigarette to my mouth and take a long inhale. We used to smoke together. I can feel the smoke filling my voids my cracks my lonely spaces. My lungs beg for more. My body cries for my vice. Every inhale brings a calm a satisfaction I can’t find anywhere else. Actually, I have found that calm that satisfaction before. I really get to thinking while I stand alone smoking on my stoop watching the people fly by in their cars. I was once so happy. I knew what it was to be completely and fully loved and to be in love with another human being. I believe that is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and when you find a love like that, you should never let it go. You should hold on to it and cherish it and realize how special it is. I did everything right. I treated them the way they deserved to be treated. It kills me knowing that they didn’t feel worth much at some points because they are worth more than they will ever understand. I made it my mission to make them feel worthy and a person who deserves real love. I met them at my lowest point ever. They saved me from self-destruction and that means the world to me. Sure, I had, maybe I still have, a drinking problem, a smoking problem and other vices, but I am damaged goods. I never understood why they wanted me. They could have done so much better than me. I caused pain and heartache and sadness. I ruined everything. “I ruined everything.” The amount of times I have said that to myself is more than people there are in the world.

I’m so damaged I don’t know how to be okay, but they made me feel okay. They made me feel like everything was going to be okay. They pulled me from the darkest part of my mind. When I reached for a hand to grab mine and save me, they were there. It felt so right. But, we can’t always have what makes us happy. The world doesn’t work like that. Unfortunately, life sucks. How can something that feels so right just be thrown away like that? Well, I guess I thought it was so right, but they had other feelings and plans for their life. I didn’t fit the mold they had in mind. I wasn’t allowed to be in the race for their heart. Love sucks. It’s hard, it’s complicated and it hurts more than anything I have ever experienced in my life. It is amazing when you have it, and it is soul crushing when you lose it. I wish I was still with them. I wish they wanted me. I just wish it was easy. My heart is shattered, and I don’t know how to make it better. They were my soulmates, and I didn’t think I believed in soulmates, but they were. I know I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with them. I would rather be alone forever if I can’t be with my one true love. Everyone tells me to forget them and I can do better, but I don’t want to do better.

Damn, if love doesn’t kill me, these cigarettes sure will. I hope they kill me, so this pain can go away. I lifted the butt of the cig to my mouth and took a long drag, closed my eyes and let the killer fill my lungs. I just let myself burn. I let myself turn to ash and blow away in the wind. I burn from the inside out. My heart is on fire. It burns and consumes me. Me? Who even am I anymore? Sometimes I just think, who the hell am I? I lift the cig and take one more long slow drag and flick the end out into the distance.

I hate when my mind wanders and thinks. It never ends well for me. I am getting frost bite from these thoughts in the eighty-degree weather, and it’s time to go inside. I hate going in- side because every room, every inch reminds me of them. I heat up my dinner in the microwave and sit alone at my empty kitchen table. Flashbacks fill my mind of happy dinners and cooking together. Smiles, laughter, and love, but it all fades away, and I let out a weak smile for a fleeting second and just like that it’s gone. It hurts to smile. They had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. It lit up their face. STOP! I have to stop thinking about them. I need to just eat my food and go to bed. Yeah, I think that will help. If I’m asleep I can’t think about them. I’m not even hungry anymore, so I cleared my plate. Standing at the sink another flashback floods my mind. They cleaned the dishes, and I had my hands wrapped around their waist and we would sing. Now, I just play Sam Smith, he knows sad and I feel like he gets me. STOP! I have to stop doing this I have to forget them. I need to stop thinking about them 24/7 because it is slowly killing me.

I finished the dishes, and I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. I looked at the bottle, it was their favorite. Damn. Everything reminds me of them. Why couldn’t it be me? DAMMIT. I need to stop doing this. Stop thinking about them. It will never be me, and I have to understand that. Our love just wasn’t strong enough to keep us together. I closed the fridge and took a long sip out of my bottle and stared at it for a second and decided to grab three more out of the fridge. It was just one of those nights. Sometimes we are weak and give in to our vices. Sometimes we just need to numb the pain or else it would kill us. I’m not ready to die yet so numbing the pain is my only solution. I date other people, I put myself out there, but I just can’t connect with anyone else. My heart, my fragile heart, my glass heart, belongs to them. And they shattered it into a million pieces, and for some reason if they wanted me back, I would go back running; no, sprinting to them, I would forgive them for everything and hold them in my arms. I would feel whole again. STOP IT! I have to stop doing this and thinking this way. I have to move on. I’m not the one for them and I never will be. They will never let me be their person, they will never let me be the one.

I walked to my bedroom with my beers, and I stood in the doorway staring at my bed. So much has happened in that bed. Can I just light it on fire? Can I throw it out the window? I wish. Another flashback takes hold of reality, and I watch before me as a scene unfolds. They are there, and I am there. We are smiling and happy in bed arguing about what to watch. It’s so real I can hear the laughter even now. I watch the joy in both of our faces and I can’t believe it’s gone. It was such a happy time. It was never simple, but in those moments, it felt simple. We were two people in love. Nothing else mattered in that moment it was just us together happy in our own bubble. They loved me and I loved them, and it was that easy. Or at least it used to be. The flashback faded out and the light in the room died. In the picture they had painted for their future, I wasn’t in it the way I wanted to be. I wasn’t the one. I would never be the one and I couldn’t understand why. I rattled my brain for the answer and I couldn’t figure it out. I guess being together wasn’t normal for them, but who cares what everyone else thinks. Love is love. And, if you are happy, genuinely happy, cherish it and hold onto it forever because that feeling is so special. I HAVE TO STOP THIS! Get a hold of yourself. You will never be the one for them so stop thinking about it.

I walked to my bed and set my drinks down on my nightstand. I inhale and exhale wishing I was inhaling a cig. I turn the TV on, and the screen lights the room ever so slightly. The night reminds me of going to sleep with them and having them hold on to me. They would cuddle me and fall asleep, and I would look at their face and they were perfect and peaceful. It was a dream come true. They would hold onto me and close their eyes and smile. Moments like that I wish I could put in a jar and watch them forever. I wish I could just sit here and watch the happy memories play like an old VHS tape of home videos from your childhood. Not the best quality and it has some flaws and the date and time are shown in the corner of each video. But, the memories they portray are of pure happiness and of happier times. I would watch them forever and never leave my room. I would ignore the outside world if I could just watch the happy memories we had together. STOP! I can’t keep doing this to myself I will go crazy. I have to let it go so I can move on and possibly be happy again.

I laid down and finished my first beer and cracked the second. The faster I drink them, the faster I can become drunk. The faster I can numb the pain. I lay there staring blankly at the TV screen mindlessly watching whatever it plays. But, the drawer of my nightstand is calling me. I try and ignore it and I drink faster, but it gets louder and louder. I have to acknowledge it, so I open the drawer. I know exactly what is in there. It’s the love letter they wrote me. I sit on the edge of my bed holding it, just staring at it. It reminds me of the happiest moment of my whole life. I had written them a love letter first. I can still vividly picture it. We were laying on the futon of my old apartment and I was so nervous to give it to them. I had hand written it, and I gave it to them. I left the room because I didn’t want to be there with them when they read it. I felt embarrassed for being that vulnerable. When they were done, I reentered the living room and laid back down on the futon next to them. We used to sleep together on that futon, one time for a week straight. We had shared so many moments on that futon. We had shared a special first in my bed. A first kiss. A moment that made my heart race. Anyway, once I got back to the futon they stared at the letter. Then they folded it up and we laid there quietly for a moment. Finally, they muttered the words, “I love you.” I was taken off guard, this was unexpected. I mean, I knew I had loved them for a while now, but I had no idea they felt the same way.

I was nervous and scared because being in love means you are giving your entire self to that person. You are trusting them and believing they will take care of your heart. I smiled from ear to ear and tried not to sound dorky or too excited, and I said, “I love you.” That was such an amazing moment. It made me the happiest person in the whole world. But I digress.

I squeezed the letter in my hand and finished my second beer. I took a deep breath, again wishing I was inhaling a cig, and I opened the letter. I read the vulnerable words they had written. They poured their heart on to that piece of loose leaf. It was like they were standing naked in front of me completely at my judgement. That letter is a treasure. I will keep it forever. I know I will never find a love like I had with them. I sat there crying my eyes out as I slid to the floor. I grabbed the third beer and chugged it. I needed the pain to go away. I needed to be okay. It was never going to be okay. I was a lost soul who was completely broken. I pretended to be okay, but once I was alone I suffered. I broke down, I cried, I crumbled, I burned, I turned to ash. I blew away into the wind. I disappeared. Sitting on that cold floor I just blew away. The numbness set in and I just vanished. I stopped crying and I just laid there lifeless, motionless, frozen. Somehow, I froze even though my heart was burning. I became an ice sculpture in the middle of July as my heart burned to the season.

I started shaking, and I sat up slowly. I reached on top of my nightstand and grabbed my cigarettes. I put one to my lips and struck a match. I couldn’t feel the heat from the match because I was so cold. I lit the cig and closed my eyes and took a long drag. The smoke filled my begging lungs. We used to smoke cigs together on my stoop. Now, I burn alone in the quiet dark- ness of my lonely apartment. I burned alone. The hazy smoke came off the end of my cigarette and floated to the ceiling. I stared blankly at the ground clutching my knees. We used to smoke, no, we used to burn together. They thawed me out, and we burned together in a consuming fire that was our love. We burned together, but now I just burn alone into rubble. I burn slowly, painfully, alone. But, I would have rather of felt what true love felt like then to never have had it at all. We burned bright and quick and then it burned out. Loneliness burns slow and quiet. I am loneliness. I burn...alone.