I perched myself on the gutter with a cup of coffee on my left hand and a cigarette on the other. Inching it into nothingness would never dull the shock out of me. No matter how hard I push myself into drugging myself with this addiction, I do not come near into finding out that I would soon be okay again.

But like this pavement I am at where this gutter belongs—crooked, blemished, and fragmented beyond repairs of labor and time—our story does not stand afar. We are like this pathway: flawed and a part of each other’s existence that could never be one. And maybe, just maybe, I am this gutter, offering my existence to such lonely souls and unkept tears; the home of cigarette butts, shaken sanity, and pieces of shattered hearts.