the ghost

It’s 5AM and sunlight is streaming through the windows of this borrowed room
While I lie awake in a new bed joined only by the ghost of us
And I am struck by the brutal truth that history always repeats itself
It was only a few years ago that I laid in another borrowed room, in another town, in another new bed
Accompanied by the ghost of a failed engagement
And a few years before that there was another room and bed and a much more brutal ghost
And now I lay here as this ghost runs it’s hand along my arm
Caressing my skin in a crude imitation of intimacy
The sun is a poor substitute for your warmth
And I have to remind myself that this ghost is touching me in all the ways you never did
the ghost highlights the emptiness of this bed
but I tell myself that an empty bed is better than one full of unmet needs, slurred declarations and half baked promises
And when the ghost leans in to kiss me
I have to keep in mind that you’ve never awoken this early and thought to love me
I have to remember our love never existed in this space
we lived in the cracks of time between other women and too much drink
in the dark, in the night, in the dimly lit spaces where secrets always hide
But never in this soft and loving daylight
Never at the break of dawn
Never at the freshness of a new day
And while this ghost takes up too much space and not enough at all
I consider how I’d rather the ghost than the true emptiness of the bed we shared
Loneliness is hard
But feeling alone in love is heartbreaking
I once told you all the ways I loved you
And all the times I wish I didn’t and now I truly wish I could find a way to stop
I have so little heart left
I can’t afford to break
In this bed, with the sun on my face and the ghost of you on my tongue
I can admit that I held too tight
That I crumbled myself clinging to an almost
This ghost is made of all the things I wished we could be
And all the things we truly were
And the dichotomy is breathtaking
This ghost burns hot, so hot that it’s scorching
And my skin blisters under it’s gaze and my hands ache where I used to touch you
My chest tightens as I breathe in and it’s almost like you’re here
and then the moment passes
and the taste of you fades with the ghost
But my hands still ache
And my chest is still too tight