a sad ghost story

You can’t see me, can you?

I’m invisible to you, aren’t I?

“I want to honor their memory.” You say to the crowd with tears dripping down your face, though I know you’re wishing so desperately to stop them. I know you hate crying in front of people.

I’d be stopping them for you if I could, but I can’t and I know that. You know that more than I. But neither of us want to accept that.

You’re dropping a lily on my casket now. A sign of respect but not to me. You know I hated lilies and I can see even now as your face scrunches in anger. I know they made you do it though.

“They’ve always loved lilies!” that’s what they all say through fake tears. It makes you angry because you’re grieving.

Will you always be grieving? Or will I?

a long time from now

Do you know I’ve watched?

Not from that far though.

I’ve been holding back your hair when you’re over the toilet from last nights party and yesterdays flu.

I’ve been wiping your tears from tomorrows heartbreak and next weeks test.

You’ve continued to be my one and my only because I want to pretend I never left. Sometimes you’re sad and I wonder if it’s because of me. I wonder if you’re thinking of us and our long nights.

I wonder if you remember when I ran to your house in the middle of the night because I knew you were sad and I needed to be the one to comfort you. If you remember when we played spin the bottle at that stupid party and you kissed me and you laughed because I was flustered.

“It’s just a kiss, silly.” You would remind me time and time again and deep down I knew you were right. Deep down I knew that to you, it would always be just a kiss. Because you were perfect and you’d kissed so many people before that.

But it was my first kiss, it was my last kiss and it was my perfect kiss.

I know that to you I’ll be a distant memory even though I’d never leave you far behind. To you I’ll be a ghost in your mind.

And to me you’ll be a ghost in my heart.

The memory of something, that could have been, might have been and never would have been. At least I’m wise enough to know that.

So I’ll stay here. Remembering the short time we had together. Waiting for the day I can finally tell you how long I’ve waited to see your face again.

what feels like a lifetime ago

“Come on! I know you’ll love it.” Your entoxicating smile and your soft grip pull me to this party I never wanted to go to. But you make everything a little more bearable.

So I stick it out just because it makes you happy even though I know no one and it will probably be a horrible experience for me. The happiness in your expression makes me forget all about that.

So when the game comes that I’d been dreading, I’m almost excited. Maybe it’s the buzz of my first sip of alcohol or maybe it’s spread of everyone else’s manufatured excitement getting to my brain.

“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!” Fifty drunk teenagers chant at me.

When I do the cheer harder and when it lands on you, it felt like a movie. To have your giant grin, bright eyes staring into mine and so abruptly closing when your lips land right on mine. I’m ecstatic in that moment, that I’ll be the only one in the room to remember it.

When you pull away what feels like a second later, my lips are still tinging with the lust for more and I can still taste your carmex for your always chapped lips. But they were soft then. So soft and innocent though I was aware of all the others they’d had before mine.

I’d always been jealous of the others. But now I understood what all the fuss was about.

You could see the blush on my face as I stood in my place, starstruck. That’s when you drunkenly laughed and said, “It was just a kiss, silly.”

That’s when I became wiser than I was.

you’re here

“Hello?” Your voice hits my ears like a hundred newly beating hearts.

“You’re here.” I approached your tired eyes as you retained the perfection you had even as you‘d grown so old.

But even then, they brightened as you smiled that hadn’t changed at all, “You haven’t aged a day…”

I smiled though I hadn’t been able to in a long time, holding out my hand to you. You took it and it was almost like I could feel your skin against mine.

You stared at our hands for a moment before looking at me, “I never forgot about you. It felt like you were always with me.”

I smiled again because I couldn’t control it, “Maybe I was.”