For I Am Just A Man

I keep doing this thing where I talk to myself like I’m someone else.

It’s easier that way.

You know that.

When the memory comes back — not as a scene, but as pressure — I let it play out in your voice instead of mine. Like if I stand far enough away from it, it won’t hurt as much.

We were singing then. I remember that part clearly, even if you pretend you don’t. Not performing. Not trying to be heard. Just filling the space because silence felt dangerous. A narrow kitchen. A bad light overhead. Our voices fitting together without effort.

She smoked when she thought. You tell me I didn’t mind it. I tell you I did — but I never asked her to stop. Cigarettes near an open window. Smoke curling and settling into the curtains, my jacket, my lungs. Cigarettes and cold air and something warm underneath. Something human.

She said she would always be there.

You insist she meant it.

I insist that doesn’t matter.

I believed her anyway. Or maybe you did. Maybe I just let you.

Now the bottle is heavy in my hand, and I don’t know which of us picked it up first. The city is loud — too loud — laughter spilling out of doorways, music leaking through brick walls like nothing ever broke. You hate it for continuing. I hate it for not noticing.

You shout a line from a song into the street. I recognize it immediately. A melody that never learned how to end. Your voice cracks halfway through.

Good, you say.

I don’t argue.

You drink and walk and drink again, telling yourself this is clarity. That if there were a god worth believing in, he would have stepped in before it got this far.

“God’s a liar,” you mutter.

“So is love.”

Someone passes too close. Someone laughs. Someone lights a cigarette, and the smell hits hard enough to steal the air from my chest. You freeze. For a second — just one — you think she’s nearby. That if you turn, she’ll be there, watching you like she used to.

Don’t turn, I tell you.

You already know better.

The alley is narrow and damp, walls sweating rust and old rain. My knees hit the ground harder than I expect. Harder than you expect. The bottle slips from my fingers and rolls away, glass clinking once before silence swallows it whole.

We stay there.

Breathing in ghosts. Smoke that isn’t there anymore. Promises that didn’t survive being spoken out loud.

You think about praying.

I shut that down fast.

Because we both know the truth you keep circling, the one neither of us wants to say out loud:

I was never meant to be worshipped.

You were never meant to be saved.

I am just a man —

and you are just the part of me that knows it.