I Set the Table for Ghosts

The candle doesn’t warm the room anymore,

it only performs the idea of light,

dressed in melted lace and lavender smoke

as if that could make us forget the sun.

I set it beside the dice, the kind that used to decide fate over laughter,

before the silence got teeth and the sky began folding in

like letters never sent, creases sharp, ink still wet in memory.

The amulet sits where I left it, cool as a lie,

still whispering the names of those who never returned,

and I touch it sometimes just to remember what skin used to feel like,

not survival, not strategy, just skin.

I keep the typewriter near,

though its ribbon is long since dry and its keys rusted into prayer,

because there was a time I wrote invitations on it,

tea at six, stories at seven, love always.

Now I host ghosts and call it hospitality,

laying out crystal that reflects no face,

flowers that never wilt because they were dead when I found them,

and I pretend to read palms I can’t touch anymore,

just to recall

how it felt

to believe I could change anything at all.