Living With a Ghost

Months later, you’d think you wouldn’t cross my mind.

I had hoped this would be like the last time,

I would walk away,

I would forget.

But now, reawakened memories toss fitfully

about my head, fading ever slowly.

The day we met, all those years ago, that once surfaced

to enrapture my senses, now seems a waking dream.

Gone are the smells and fluid motion, the sound of your voice,

become a whisper of the breeze upon the heads of spring flowers.

Left only a few Polaroids, inside of a dusty shoe box.

Snapshots of things remembered, left behind in a child’s long ago.

Does it bother me to remember so little of a now ancient love?

I think I remember too much.

I miss the thrill of wind kissing my face, my own smile lighted

for all to see.

Last time was different, I had left, so I kept my smile,

stealing yours for the hard days.

Now it would seem our fortunes reversed, but to what purpose?

Gone now are the days of lilies dropped upon your doorstep,

gone now the music of summer time, the faintest touch with tilted lips.

Is this revenge for the wings I had stolen?

Cursed now to never fly so long as this ghost haunts my movements.

I wish forgetting happened faster, the painful phone calls,

light hearted messages, hurried breath, and talk of futures.

All still linger, and rush about, closing doors, banging pots in the night.

Sending chills through my spine and blowing candles out.

An end is near, that I sense, for whom I know not.

New love’s spark replaces the match, years ago sent

flaming passion alight.

But will she haunt me just the same?

Forevermore, I wonder.