Trams and suits

Phil was about to go into rehab in a few days time.
Some farmstay kinda deal this time.

He chose to spend his birthday with me watching the butterfly effect, a box of wine under his arm, wide pupil convo with some very on edge housemates of mine, shaking hands and telling stories of me and him from Darwin days.
We sat and watched the movie.

He bit at invisible strings on his wrists tying him there, ashamed to be doing something so normal - he made the beanbag look like a bed of nails and didn't seem to appreciate the aesthetics of Ashton kutchers face.

If you dart side to side in the hallway of that house, you can still see his mania, where he'd taken one of our mates eyeliner pencils and crudely tagged up all the walls after we'd gone to bed that night.
I texted him on behalf of the house the next day, said that he wasn't welcome around anymore; feigning injury to my idea about what our friendship had meant - 'why would you do that man?! I'm ya only mate!'
I pretended like I didnt understand.
Pretended I couldnt grasp his need to burn bridges, or push love into the river, just to see if it would come up swimming again.

Other things around the house were missing too,
people were on my back,
people were comforting and helpful.
People are like that, they know soft hearts aren't to blame - that open doors will always remain open doors.

I pretended like it hurt more than it did when his brother came around the next month looking for him, one of my boys who answered the door said they'd never heard of him and to go away. I pretended like it hurt to realise that if his brother didn't know, then he'd never made it to the farm, or he wouldn't have even been chucked in Port Phillip again without his brother getting word.

I pretended it wasn't elation I felt at being free of Phil.
It was months later I grieved for my friend, sat down and went through our travel pics and had a cry.
I think i see him out of the corner of my eye on trams and feel like a prick about trying to wear my suit like an armour, hope that if it is him, that im disguised in my clothes from his memory.
This ghost really does frighten me, and it scares me even worse to think of others I will push out into the ethereal one day.