He walked into the bar, eyes cast down towards his shoes, shadowing a face that's been tampered with by no sleep, failure to eat and a hole in his life too big to begin to fill. Jaw bones protrude out farther than normal creating a line no longer handsome, but homely. His body sits heavy on his figure. He breathes in the Jameson soaked air with a hope that today will be better, but an exhale too long, too deep tells me today is just as bad. And I wonder how I can help, because that's what I do. Help. If I could hold him I would, but he won't let me. So for now I'll just smile and he'll smile back on cue.

But what I'd really like to say to him is that he's so much better than this. That his inability to put himself first is the angel and devil that coexist so beautifully in his unencumbered life. Bend over that bar and flirt with that girl, but when you go home lonely at night it's not because there's no one to love you - I often think it's because you can't let yourself love them back. Loyal, yes indeed you are, but when does that loyalty end and the you begin. You have a passion for life unlike any other I've ever seen, but it's buried so deep beneath the haves and have nots that I'm not sure you remember it exists. Your humble and patient with those that come in and out of your life, leaving you with a raw talent for making them feel comfortable, lively and ever so accepted.

There was a time in your life when you used to breath in the sweetness of a salty ocean air instead of the cold, staleness of Chicago. I'm sure you found yourself warm beneath the rising sun and relaxed as it set above a mirage of waves. I just wish that if you can't have that - if you can't go back to the place that seems to be your freedom, then try and bring it here. Because in the end, the man I saw walk into the bar the other night is not the man he'd want to be.