Ghost are real

I know because I’m haunted

By his laugh and the way it sounded over coffee in the morning

And he’s still laughing now,

At someone, at something

But I’ll never know for sure if he’s laughing at me

It’s all there is,

All I know

And it follows me like a story,

Like a shadow that little Wendy decided to sew to my shoes

It’s loudest by the windows

And hardest to hear from the stairs,

But it’s always there.

Ghosts are real,

I know, because it’s permanent

Like the burn from that cigarette he dropped on my kitchen floor

He was aiming for the waste basket but hey, nobody’s perfect

And it’s always there.

Even if other things aren’t.

That promise of permanence broke

Like glass and that teacup

With flowers and a smile to hold on to

And I thought I was lucky for keeping my distance

Because in the end everything breaks

And I knew it and he proved it

But now I can’t let go,

Of photographs and voices that keep asking if my blues are what caused the shatter

But are they my voices or his

Blues; that creature I carry,

That thing I gave into the instant he said that blue looked good on me,

And I tore myself in half

Because all I wanted was to be something good.

But blue is a brick wall

And my hands bled long before that wall came down.

Ghosts are real.

I know, because that wall is still there

And I thought that by now I’d have forgotten but something keeps reminding me,

And they’re not my thoughts,

Because who am I if this is how I think,

No,

ghosts are real and I know because he’s still whispering in my ear.

So he laughs, and sometimes it’s a question

But mine or his

And who knows the answer

And has anyone heard the question?

Because I know that he’s asking one

But all I can hear is the way his head would tilt to the left when he didn’t know

And once upon a time, all my dreams came true and he decided to make me the answer,

He decided to make me his answer

But god help me, I never wanted to be the answer to silence.

Pins are always dropping

And I’ve learned to watch where I walk --

He taught me what it felt like to get stuck.

So now I have all these lessons

And these wounds and all these noises

Things he gave me and left me because in another life I had wanted them

Ghosts aren’t real.

They don’t need to be.