This one comes from a place I never thought I would visit again. A place, and a person, I've tried to forget.
Perhaps this is how I do that.
YOU ARE THE REASON
It's comforting to know I still remember where our old house is.
It's been two years since I've been here. Since I've seen this house; walked along the walls, feeling every crack and ridge to make sure none of it is out of place.
It's been the longest two years of my life, and I'm not too sure why I'm back here.
She left a long time ago, during all of my bullshit. She wouldn't ever tell me, but I know she left because of me. Because of all the shit I put her through, because of how much I tried to cover up while dealing the drugs, stealing the booze, fucking other women. Because of the way I acted like a child, like a spoiled child that needed to be beaten, and I didn't see a damn thing wrong with myself. She saw it; she knew it, even, and I was blind as a goddamn bat and didn't think it would lead to her packing a bag and moving on.
She left a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday.
She would ask me if I slept with other women; I said no. She would ask if I was a drug dealer; I said no. She would ask if I was drunk or high or even just being like my own father, and I said no.
I lied through my goddamn teeth, forced words out of my mouth that I knew weren't true, that I knew would eventually come to bite me in the ass, and yet I still did it.
I didn't see an error in my ways until she packed up a bag––the only bag I'd gotten her for our first Christmas as a married couple––and left. I didn't see an error in my ways until I called her in all hours of the night for weeks, months, and not once did she answer.
It's only now, as I stand before the house I used to share with the person I loved, with the person I thought I would be with for the rest of my life, that I realize how much of a total asshole I had been to her. It's here, standing before this house, that I realize how much I miss her.
How much I need her.
How much I want her.
And it dawns on me: she never wants me back.
No matter how much I call her, try to get her to talk to me, she doesn't answer. No matter how many letters I leave in her mailbox, no matter how much I drink or how much heroin I shove into my veins, she's still on my mind. She's still in my head.
No matter how much I can apologize... no matter how many times I can cry to the heavens above and hope that one day, she hears me, I know she'll never take me back.
I have to be okay with that.
And by leaving that house, leaving that final phone call last night before I drive off somewhere, I can start to be okay.
I can start to live again.