Maybe it's just cheap easy lust with chemicals. We're dirt forever.
It was five days, almost to the hour. Five days since he left. I hadn't left the flat in five days. The poky little flat that was now mine but was once his too. The messy flat that smelt of cigarettes and now, more prevalently, him. Alex. His scent was everywhere. On my clothes, on the bedsheets, on the furniture, no matter how many windows I kept open or how much I washed everything. He was ingrained in the foundations of the building, and he stank.
It was five days, almost to the hour before I finally left, grabbing a jacket and going out, slumping down on a stool in some rough-looking bar.
Maybe I'll find pleasure tonight, with chemicals I'll hardly miss him.
Maybe you wear clothes like he wears. Same coloured hair. I'm sick forever.
It was five days, almost to the hour, that I saw you. I thought you were him at first. You look just like him. It's the only reason I gave you a second glance. Your hair fell in exactly the same way and was just the same colour, brown roots coming through at the top. You were wearing a checked shirt just like one he had. Even your eyes were the same blue when you looked up and met my gaze. I thought you would be perfect, exactly what I needed. A distraction. Turns out what I needed was a substitute, and you were exactly that. The perfect second best.
Our eyes were bright, out of sight. Two strangers caught behind the night.
You're the perfect second best.
We left together and I took you back to my flat and we kissed on the way back, stumbling over our feet. You even kissed like him. Then I lead you into my room and pushed you down on the bed and you felt like him. You moved like him and you moaned like him and you tasted like him and you dug your nails into my back like him and it was so uncanny I almost said his name. But you weren't him, and of that I had to remind myself because you were so like him. Your wide eyes looked into mine through the darkness and I could have sworn it was him. But you weren't, you were a stranger. A substitute. And you slept on his side of the bed and I cuddled into you from behind like I did to him and when I woke up our ankles were tangled together and it was just like it was with him.
And when you left it was horrible. I didn't know if you were him or not and it was like having to watch him leave all over again.
Every time I see your ghost
You're the perfect second best
And you left me your number and it's been six days now. You told me your name was Phil. Six days since he left, mere hours since you left and I haven't moved since. Your number's been sat on the pillow next to me and I've smoked a whole packet of cigarettes and I want to call you and I want to call him and I don't know if there's a difference because even your voice sounds like his. I'm starting to think you really were him.
But I can't call you because I used you and I can't call him because he's got someone else now and all I can do is light up another cigarette and rip up your number and notice that the flat smells slightly less of him and slightly more of you, and I'm still not sure there's a difference.
Maybe you're right, just for tonight. But your clumsy kiss won't taste so clever.