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.

 

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In response to day 8: the letter unsent, #onceuponaseptember

Poem: © Kristiana Reed 2019

Between the Trees UK

Between the Trees US

Available internationally