I Am Talking To A Ghost
I still have your note cards laying on my shelf. I dust around them. The trunk of my car still has a whole box full of your things that I haven’t touched since I tried to drag you out of that rented house.
You were so stubborn.
I was wiping down my counters the other day and I noticed this one spot where you had cut into the linoleum one day when I was trying to distract you from your depression with baking. You left 20 minutes later. I didn’t try to stop you. You wanted to be alone.
I didn’t. I still don’t.
I imagine this silent room now filled with your laughter, and I picture how much better it would be.
I would have hugged you more.
I would have understood how hard it was for you. Had I only been in your shoes. Had I have realized your pain. I have yet to throw away that candle you bought me three weeks before. Or that bottle of wine.
I should have hugged you more.
Sometimes I regret everything. Other times I think it wasn’t that bad. It’s undoable. It’s impossible to return to that place. And that’s when the sadness sets in. Knowing nothing will ever be able to change things.
Why does it have to always be so hard without you?
Why didn’t I realize that then. You probably didn’t know this, but I loved you. With all my heart. I was scared to confront you. I was scared to lose you because I was scared you would get mad. That if I said you needed to get control of your depression meds, that you needed to really talk to someone and open up, that you needed to look at the world and say ‘fuck you world you don’t even know the best me yet, just wait, I’ll show you’, but you never did do that.
You gave up. You made everyone else feel the way you did. Hopeless.
All my hope disappeared the moment I last held your hand, cried cheek to cheek with you, kissed your face, hugged you, and told you I would love you yesterday, today and tomorrow. My hope disappeared that morning I woke up knowing you’d never talk to me again. Getting that text saying you had passed away two hours after I finally fell asleep. My best friend had died. I miss you everyday. Every day. No day is any easier.
They all lied. They said the pain would fade. That it would all be alright. They lied.
I still need you and long for your advice and kind words. You were the best friend anyone could ask for. I grew up with you. We taught each other everything, not always good things, but everything. You taught me to let my hair down throw my hands in the air and let my worries go. I have had one hell of a time even attempting that in the past year and a half. I have been cautious. I have been scared. I have been anything but the person you would have thought I would have become.
You used to always say ‘Abby I wish I was as strong as you’ and I used to laugh…I didn’t believe I was strong.
Looking back on it, me now compared to me then, you were right I was strong. I was really strong. I don’t know if that girl died with you or if she just went into hiding but I sure as hell wish you were here to tell me. I do miss you. I hope you know that.