A Habit I Can’t Outrun

I swear I’m trying,

scrubbing you out of my bloodstream,

flushing the memory like poison,

counting days like they mean something.

Then you show up

soft as denial,

hands clean, voice innocent,

like you don’t know what you do.

Like you don’t feel the pull

you stitched into my bones.

And I fall,

not slowly, not gracefully,

but like I was built for it.

Like gravity learned my name.

I’ve quit worse things,

buried habits with shaking hands,

walked away from cravings

that clawed and begged.

But you,

you don’t beg.

You hum.

Low, familiar,

a melody that finds me

even when I plug my ears,

even when I swear I’ve gone deaf to you.

Stronger than whiskey burn,

stronger than smoke in my lungs,

you live somewhere deeper,

in the quiet spaces I can’t lock.

I am a blind man

tracing the edge of a cliff,

knowing the drop,

feeling the wind whisper don’t

and stepping anyway.

I am a sailor

who hears the warning bells,

ties himself down,

then loosens the knots himself

just to listen closer.

Because you don’t feel like ruin.

You feel like relief

disguised as it.

And every time I reach you,

every time I let you in again,

I tell myself,

this is the last time

I mistake drowning

for breathing.