Ghosts Don't Respect Eviction Notices

Ghosts can choose to walk out of one’s closet at the most inconvenient times.

You can chase it back inside and lock the door, or you might

Snap at it with a murderous look in your eye,

“I thought I told you to fucking leave”

But today, when his ghost walked out of my closet, I did not

Push or yell. Instead, I slid over

And invited it to lie next to me.

I don’t know why I did that, and it was awkward at first;

Then I got angry and found the thin line between love and hate,

Finally grasping the concept of “hate-fucking,” which was

- I might add -

Wholly unwelcome

But then, after an emotionally-tumultuous few moments, I found myself

Crying

The kind of crying that makes you want to shrink into yourself

The kind that says, “the only thing more vulnerable than this

Is to literally peel back my skin

So that you might see inside the cavity of my

Chest, and part of me hates you

For witnessing me

Like this.”

But I didn’t say that. Instead,

I found myself saying something that I am not even sure is true:

“I loved you, you know.”

The ghost did not answer, but showed me a picture of him as

A small child. I understood then

That decay can only eat the flesh of those

Once living, once glimmering in their youthfulness -

Innocent, small, and dazzling

This understanding did not make the decrepit appearance of the ghost

Any less unsettling; however,

as I laid there with just futile words and

incomplete questions,

I realized…

The ghost had only the same.

Just as my words cannot make tangible my inner world

               - Ten years-worth of settling dust, the feeling

               Of being the earth onto which your life is

               Collapsing; the feeling of being trapped

Under burnt skin -

Neither can he.

Neither can his ghost.

We are only left with our own vague truths and the knowledge

That even those are not the half of it.

So I said no more – no justifications, no explanations, no qualifiers or addendums.

No effort to make the ghost understand, nor effort to validate myself.

Just, “I loved you,

You know?”

And I cried those awful tears – tears I am glad no one but a ghost was around to see

And when my body had said its piece,

I walked the ghost to the door -

Not the closet door.

The front door.

And I watched it leave.

I feel strangely now:

The ghost may come back to visit, I know,

But it no longer lives

In the closet of my chest

And I know,

As much as I hated it,

I had needed it to stay

It had wanted to linger

Only because we both

Had yet to realize, and

Both needed to understand

That there was nothing left to say

Nothing more to "hash out"

Other than goodbye