People talk to me like you are dead,

if they speak to me about you at all.

I don’t think they notice but I feel—

the hairs along my neck bristle

the crawling eyes of some ghost on my back

let into this room through the chasm created

by your name, brought to life on a rolling tongue.

I hold my breath beneath a guise of nonchalance,

create a hollow of silence hoping they will fill it,

one syllable at a time. Please keep talking.

​

They never do.

And it’s always past tense,

as though your life stopped at the border of town

when you crossed that rural line, sometime

in your late teens, early twenties.

Just like the dead, you do not age,

not here in this town, not here in my head,

always bound to be on the brink

of becoming.

What did you become?

​

He told me at the wedding

how much you loved me.

Yet all I remember is the weight of me,

a coal black anchor pulling you

down into the sea, into the sand.

The sun of your face above me,

your scythe of a smile cutting

through darkness.

I look for the ghost in the room.

But the answers never come.

​

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