I climb the old swingset like stepping into a time machine— rusted chains, sun-warmed plastic, my childhood escape route before I knew what fleeing meant. Back then, it was laughter, skinned knees, laces trailing in the dirt. Now I crave a different kind of height— one that softens the world’s edges, where his name doesn’t echo so loud. I pump my legs like I used to, as if I could outrun the gravity that pulls me back to him. And I try—God, I try— to swing past that part of my mind where his laugh still lives between every arc. He was once the high— his laugh, his hands, the way he spoke my name like it carried weight. Since then, nothing’s compared, except when I’m not sober. He’s not here, yet in the blur between each high, I almost feel him— in the hush of the sky, the stillness before the fall. I remember his touch—how it felt like safety until it left. Sometimes I find myself back on that old swingset, feet lifted, heart clenched, fingers wrapped tight around the chains as if they’re the only thing keeping me from unraveling. Back then, I soared to feel free. Now I get high to forget. I say I’m fine. But I still find him in every come-down, in silences that stretch too long. He’s gone, but he hasn’t left— not really. He lingers in my chest like smoke, like memory, like a habit I never meant to form. I don’t call it addiction. But every high fades, and I crash into him all over again. I see him in flickers, hear him in the static— and it aches, missing someone who stopped missing me. Still, I swing. I climb higher, as the air thins and my chest grows tight, wondering if I’’ll ever release him, release this ache. Still, I rise— searching for a sky that doesn’t look like his eyes.