What It’s Like To Love A Ghost

Our only reach was for the glass of hope that was centered between us. Parched of connection, we thirstily and desperately extended our tired hands, at first for each other and then for nothing. This is what it’s like to love a ghost. Our promised “could-be’s” pooled at the base of our icy foundations. We began to crumble. Those shared moments frozen in space and time were dissolving into the unreachable.

Gone. Forgotten.

This absent love had vanished into something we once called hope. Irrational idealism constructed itself into burdening expectations. I had no choice but to fail you. I chose to drink from your cup full of translucent emptiness. Oh! How my eyes strained to see the sweet liquid of your promises, your sticky web of forevers and always. I struggled to manifest an illusion into reality. I tried to see the man you presented to me on that first night so long ago. As if a dream, a string of stars would beam behind your twinkling grin every time time you called me beautiful. You illuminated my girlish daydreams. You carved my name into the moon; you told me it was mine. I believed you. You had me. I was yours. I folded into the comforts of an indolent love. You were someone then, I think. You were someone just for me. Now I chase the ghost of a love I’m not sure ever existed. You were my dream, and I slept nicely for some time.

I sometimes miss a smile I’m not sure was ever even mine. A smile that once looked sweet as honeysuckle but turned malicious with the setting of the sun. I lost myself in your vacancy. I craved your medicine, your attention. You made me need you. I let myself need you. I built a foundation within your void and floated aimlessly while you quietly whispered my way into complete obsession. Just like a fickle child having fought so hard to obtain an overvalued plaything, your pleasure was in the chase. “I got what I wanted and now I want something else.” The mantra of a broken man.

I didn’t fail you. You failed me. You failed yourself. I gave you the roadmap to my heart and you played illiterate. You created a shrine of me that existed only in yourself. Who was I to you and how did I not know her? I gave you most of me, the little morsels I had. I tried to fit your image of perfection despite every reason not to. My meek attempts to resolve an unsatisfactory love left me defeated. You left me without moving at all.

I could not let go. My fingers were trapped in memories of someone just like you. Nothing seemed real anymore.

But now I let go. Exhaustion released my tight grip and I watched you drift away into the sun, burned like Icarus in your selfish ambition. I finally heard the hatred in your tone. I finally felt the disdain for my existence within your realm. I finally climbed out from your dark abyss. Then I floated softly into the unknown. How blissful this world is without your angry stare. As with each passing cloud, I recognize the fleeting nature of your so-called commitments. I breathe in the release. And with each exhale, I say goodbye.

I don’t wish you the pain you couldn’t help but to give me. I wish only to release myself. I’ll carve my own name into the moon and call it mine. I need me and there isn’t room for you. May the stars guide you home, invisible lover. I think I loved you. I hope, one day, you love you too.