Is your ghost still a part of me? 

There is a faint trace of you everywhere, an inkling that you want to be known, and I visualize you with me in hopes you see the scene too. 

            Hanging by a thread coated in daydreams,

    you loom over those around us

        with your brows furrowed

             at everyone who isn’t me–

You lean against me on the pedestal I built for you and display in vain. Though no one can see you under that stiff, matted sheet you project, I know how displaced you feel. I pride myself on how well I know you, how you keep five busy fish tanks in your bedroom—chaotic for the sake of distraction. You were the first person I ever knew. 

I hide your letters under the floorboards, decoding them for the person I want you to be. Each time I read, a new red flag introduces itself. 

We’ve met before, coos the red flag.

I must have mistaken you for paranoia, I reply. 

What could have been had you slipped that unforgiving sheet away from your aching body?

Maybe I’ll never know— 

               but I follow your ghost

                   sulking alongside me.

I know why you linger.