I hug your ghost to sleep

there is nothing romantic in my missing. I walked you to a train before I knew what goodbye meant. it was different then: we were both people in the present tense, saying words we’d heard but not yet learnt or tried to understand. maybe we should have known better. maybe we shouldn’t have met. I recount what I remember into parables and psalms. the scriptures sell a canon that means nothing to the faithful beyond memory and dream. nobody knows what they’re trying to say.

the story ends. I hug your ghost to sleep knowing you won’t mind. we can laugh at what I know I should leave be. you are an idea I water with tears that should be saved for something else, any cause more worthy than the absence of someone for whom I no longer exist. still I wonder how much you remember. am I anything more than a name? do you see me in the cracks of the walls? you are nowhere I have been and yet I cannot be removed with silence. we use the words we want to tell our story though what was cannot be changed. we were here forever for a while. another world was real beyond the dreams and time that come between us since. 

space does little to dilute the curse. I love an idea that ties me helpless to the stake from where I watch the forest burn. on the pyre my view is clear above the smoke at my feet. the sky is pink with flames of fires that matter more than mine. I hear the masses cry for help beyond the hill. with a pulse I do nothing for the screams: the knots I’ve tied are in your name and keep me where I am. the sky is pink until the flames make way for night. with the ashes I ascend over a world diseased, ignored by those ignored by those for whom they shouldn’t long. I miss you in the sky that covers over everything.