Swallow. That's what I do with the guilt, every single day. Guzzle it down like some bitter cocktail. And goddamn does it hurt. Like shards of glass, easing their way down my throat Seven years is a long time to spend with just one man. Seven years—seven years of shared highs and lows, of escaping reality together until it all came crashing down. I remember the day he left this world, taken by a stroke that seemed as sudden as it was inevitable. Now, as I sit in the clarity of sobriety, the weight of our wasted years presses down on me. I wish I had been strong enough to pull us both out of that haze before it was too late. I wish I had chosen to love him in the way he deserved, not with the numbness of our addiction, but with the fullness of my heart.

Hidden in the shadows of my mind, there's a version of us that could have been. A version where we laughed and loved without the crutch of our next fix. I feel him in every sunrise, every moment of beauty that we should have shared sober. The shame of not being the one to break the cycle, to offer him a chance at a different ending, haunts me. I treated him badly, lost in my own selfishness, and now there's no way to apologize. No way to make amends, to tell him how deeply I loved him despite it all.

Guilt is my constant shadow. The bitter reminder of the time we squandered, the love we diluted with every hit and every shot. I’m doing better now, I'm clean, and life has a sharpness that's both beautiful and painful. I ache with the hope that he can see me, that somehow, he knows the person I've become. I wonder if he's proud, if he forgives me, if he understands why I couldn't be the one to save us both. And in those moments when I feel his absence most, I whisper into the void, hoping that he hears me, that he's somewhere out there, watching over me.