You sit where I swore I’d never see you again— bottle half-drained, still sweating in the dark, like you never left. You wear my fingerprints like trophies. You know what I’ll do before I do it. Some nights I bargain: just a sip, just enough to take the edge off, just to sleep. But you don’t deal in “just.” You take and I give until I’m nothing but slurred thoughts and locked doors. I’ve woken with you in my blood— mouth dry, heart a fist beating itself raw. Woken on floors, in beds I didn’t recognize, words I didn’t mean still hanging in the air. You’ve stolen my face in pieces— eyes too red, voice too loud, the jokes too sharp. But still, I miss you like a limb I had to cut off to stay alive. You’re patient. You haunt without a sound. No footsteps, no breath— just the knowledge that you’re always an inch away from welcome. But I’ve counted the bottles like headstones. I’ve buried enough nights to know where this road goes. Down a path I don’t want to follow, yet I still do. You remain. But so do I.