project 52 / week 39 / shadows & secrets
39/52 // shadows & secrets 1
39/52 // shadows & secrets 2
39/52 // shadows & secrets 3
a short poem about letters to ghosts, part 7
About a month ago,
I wrote another letter,
To my ghost.
The ghost who knows me.
Who understands the things I have a hard time describing.
Who lived at the other end of the tether.
I asked for advice. I pleaded. I cried out, tears slipped.
I ran too hard, until my lungs felt like they would explode,
And my wrist itched in that uncomfortable way.
But there’s no way to reach a ghost.
There is only what there always is.
Hollow silence, all the words to and from,
Get intercepted by shadows and darkness.
A tether no more, only a loop.
A fact of the nonfiction in my life.
I can wish it a hundred different ways,
I can hope, until it reaches soaring heights,
I can play out every scenario,
But it just… Is.
There is only what there always is.
I repeat the truth.
And it slips away like water.
Finding a different path back to wherever it came from.
I might not ever, be able to hold it, in my hands.
And my ghost would know.
Would have the answer.
I would Run. Fly. Drive. Climb.
To get to that ghost.
I would study the map, find the route.
To learn the way. To hear the answer.
And get out of the loop of shadows and secrets.
I yank on the tether. I pour it into the universe.
I hit the steering wheel. I let my body shake.
Rage, anger, apathy, numbness, nothing, silence.
I turn the music loud to drown it out.
It doesn’t change the truth.
There’s no way to reach a ghost.
There is only what there always is.
Hollow silence, all the words to and from,
Get intercepted by shadows and darkness.
A tether no more, only a loop.