Ghost

i still taste the ashes on my tongue from where you burned yourself into a kiss.

i still feel your fire stoker fingers against my thighs from where your hands wandered close to my warmth.

i don’t want this though.

i don’t want your ghost rising from the ashes of something that only ever sort of was.

don’t want to remember how you would call me baby or that you would recite a father's saying when you were scared or stay on the phone with me three extra hours because i was scared.

don’t want to be reminded of yellow roses or red string or hopeless plans for a future that can’t exist.

i don’t want it.

i don’t want it.

i don’t want it.

i don’t want any of it.

soon it’ll be a year since i told you goodbye.

after that, it’ll be a year since we stopped talking entirely.

there are some days when i wish i had never met you.

those days are few and far between.

but just get out of my head, you wandering spirit.

i won’t build you another altar after i’ve already burned down the first one.