night

tonight my ghost laughs at me

he laughs and laughs

it is bittersweet to hear him laugh again, the thick throaty chuckle i once loved so much, bouncing around my soul

i grieve my own will

he laughs and laughs, my memory, my memories; maybe i will too. two souls in unison, one tethered to longing, the other tethered to forgetting.

i lie awake with the absence of miracles. the absence of anything other than time. his absence. i lie awake with our absence.

like a small flesh pocket tucked away between two teeth, i run the tongue of my heart over the hole, over and over and over again, sucking dry every ounce of love and feeling i can get from the memory of a meal, the memory of a laugh.

im laughing now.

halfway between choke and prayer, giggle and sob.

he isnt proud, he isnt here, he isnt gone.

i lick the plate of our dinners past clean in my mind. salt and pepper, a rotting connection, i chew through it all. The hunger was never for him. It was for the part of me that melted in his hands.

to remember is to forget, to live is to grieve, to forget is to die. I placed my mouth on his wound and called it love.

the man inside me watches my fragmentation, with a twinkle in his eye, he glues me back together into a new work of art. i glue him back together as best as i can, for our new world.