Last Cigarette

His name was on my last cigarette
After a night of alcohol and fighting and tears
Sitting on the dryer in the basement,
His voice speaking to me over the phone
As the artificial light flickered on
And his grip on my heart flickered off

I first saw him
Because he drank his demons as I did
I saw the cracks no one else saw behind
His smile and jokes
But he's a sucker for love
Desperate, using it to fill the holes
Left by others
3AM, telling him it was okay,
That the nightmares weren't real
And that he was going to be okay

I tell others everything I know
Would comfort myself,
But I fell in love with his ocean eyes
And the feeling of his hand holding mine
The silly conversations
Overshadowed by our own darkness
I drank, smoked, used adrenaline to fight my monsters
He drank, hid his sadness with happiness, and utilized love for selfish reasons

My love for him was overwhelming,
The one person I would have taken a bullet for,
His smile, his laugh, his eyes, the way he listened,
How he made me feel like I was the only one in the universe
His lion hair, his responsibility and intelligence,
And what I thought
Was his honesty

But the night I found out why he wanted us to be so secret
Another girl, someone I saw in his Snapchat
But never cared
He was with her first, and then me,
I was too late, even with his words of I love you
And I need you
My chest broke as
He begged for me to stay, to be his friend
I tried
But the nights of screaming and sobbing in the shower at 1AM
And the craving of his attention
Was too much

He fell out of love over time, but I never did
I was in love with someone who never really existed
And I couldn't move on
He came to me when he was in the darkness
But left when there was no light in my lantern left
Leaving me to shiver
In the cold

He taught me how to care, how to love
By showing me what wasn't and what was
He was the sun in my eyes,
And I freely and happily gave him everything
But I was nothing but another plaything
Another to fill the void in his heart

Perhaps in his mind, he did love me
But his perspective of that vivid emotion
Is more deformed than mine
So I wrote his name on my last cigarette
Drunk, barely able to stand
And finally let him go

His blue eyes, his crooked smile,
His lion mane, his happy laugh
Disguising the pain in his chest and mind
And giving it to others through betrayal
And heartbreak