Ghosts

And so it fades.
Slowly it fades.
Quickly it fades.
Immediately.
It dissipates into thin air,
Into empty fridges
And emptier faces.
It shrinks,
It bows,
And it exits backwards,
Its fragile being wrapped
Into a tight ball.
Ephemral,
And volatile,
And brittle
It drips onto the floor
As I walk,
And leaves me as before,
Empty and pale.
I fall back into my former self,
My lack of one.
I fall back into… silence.
I don’t reach out,
I don’t cry out after it.
I just watch it go,
Like a thousand times before.
I almost even bid it adieu.

Its tight upward streets
And whitewashed walls,
Its afternoon still
And dizzying sun.
Its unabashed sense of contentment.
They all leave me
Like a dream.
And I don’t like what I wake up to.
I want to go back to sleep
But the alarm keeps ringing.
The coffee tastes bitter and hollow
As before,
And as before
It gives me a dull heartburn.
And yet I swallow.

Somewhere ahead
They will all meet again,
And I’ll be there.
Somewhere ahead
I’ll be once again where I were,
Where I want to be.
Somewhere ahead,
Even if only in our permanent absence.
I will dance with ghosts
If ghosts are all I love.
A ghost amongst ghosts.