City by the Sea

Sorrow is spoken in lines
spray painted across the
front of buildings here,
heartache howls from
empty lots where houses
we lived in once stood,
and your albatross absence
throws itself to the floor daily,
kicking and screaming, then
cries itself to sleep like
a motherless child.

I've lost count of the times
I packed my shit
and walked away;
but there's something in
the way salt sodden air smells
that makes it easier for
me to breathe,
and something so romantic
about the way
the sea can't stop running up
to kiss the sand.