Dear ______
I cannot use your name
nor mine in the same breath
any more than I can think of you less
than I would like.
I do not wish to call you a ghost
but that is exactly what you are –
you walk through walls,
the atriums of my heart
and you knock on all the windows;
allow the glass to clatter behind you
in the ebbing wind you conjure each day
to remind me I am not alone –
I am never alone
yet words fail and sentences fall off the edges
steeped in the alcohol of remembrance;
a swift shot of bitter nostalgia
I no longer desire to return to.
I guess I am writing to say
I no longer desire to know you –
now or then, the man you were,
the spectre you’ve become,
the day dream I’ve filed away
under nightmares & things to forget.
In response to day 8: the letter unsent, #onceuponaseptember
Poem: © Kristiana Reed 2019
Available internationally