Coming
Down
by Elizabeth Ferguson
I
am still living with your ghost;
two and a half years breed habits hard to break
and your shadow follows at my left elbow
cold and whining of how warm our bed was.
We
were poison to one another.
A drug that fattened our bodies,
made us late for work and hung-over when we showed up.
Friends gently remarked on the
change
We couldn't hear; we were hooked
Stayed in the house; stayed in bed
Forgot the bills and laundry and dishes
and all that mattered was our glorious...flight
high, above our lives.
It
was an addiction that slowly ate everything.
Looking in the mirror one day,
I knew myself for a druggie. I had
decayed.
We were both gently rotting.
I tried to tell you that we could stop;
we could help each other out
but you loved our drug more than me
Our debts didn't matter.
You saw the rot and shrugged.
So
I left.
Cold turkey off our love
shaking, fevered, puking in withdrawal
crying and snotty ran to my family
for medical coverage like a child.
To give up our love I was homeless
and laid on a bus bench in my own sweat,
not yours, for a change.
Without
us, our drug, I did not know myself.
I spent the first five months in blind work.
Sometimes the craving, the withdrawal
drove me mad; I'd find a quick fix
with some safe distant partner
and guilt about it afterward
Muttering 'but I'm clean of him'
I'm
clean.
Almost
three years since you last
I rarely slip up at all
Still, I can hear you sometimes
We were such a part of each other
Every street in this town holds a memory
That holds on to me.
I'm
going to move.
I
can only hope your ghost can't fly
who lives at my elbow
and mutters of our fantastic highs
As if we were heroin.