I’ve Spent The Past Year As A Ghost

I’ve spent the past year as a ghost. The pallor in my skin and the sickening circles under my eyes are ghoulish; I scare others so very easily. I twist my words into vagueness through cracked lips and lean on the wall, limber arms closed around my chest as if hiding a masked truth. My motions are fluid and yet extremely inept; I stumble into your life and leave with a grave swiftness if I wish.

People first witness me through filtered eyes, seeing untainted love and nostalgia, oblivious to the hard lines on my aloof face. It takes nights of my wailing and moaning for them to understand that they must shack up in fear; they must confront their pressing regrets as I toss and turn in their heads. It is so simple to make them whisper in my direction as my lifeless body walks down cold and empty hallways. It is so simple for them to want me gone as much as much as they once yearned for my presence.

Life moves so seamlessly around me but I am inevitably stuck in events of the past. It would seem, for many, I am the past. They look at me and recollect the shadows in their room that linger almost every night, departing only when sunrise occurs and communication with life begins. Every step I take echoes in a dusty area long forgotten, it is only when they think of me do I take a step closer into the light. I am seldom thought of and thus my ghost dawdles in a life that is barely mine.

Though I was once a lively human, with human emotions and desires, those times are long gone. I witnessed the light in my eyes die so suddenly that it made my heart stop, my hands curled up into fists that clenched onto whatever life I had left. I still sway in the dark to a song long forgotten, my empty eyes creating water that drips down my face, my right hand stroking my cheek as if with a gentle partner. Nothing but air hangs around me, seeping into my needy lungs and leaving me standing.

I’ve spent the past year as a ghost. A ghost of the past, of the thoughts left behind. How I wish you would think of me.