An Existence Not Present

It's painful to be in love with a ghost. It isn't the absence of warmth when you reach for them, the lack of ability to touch them, or even the fact that they don't speak. The painful part is the fact they aren't really there.

The sunlight hits everything in the room. It slides off and leaves a glare on the mahogany coffee table sitting low, it touches the floor- casting shadows. The sun creeps in to warm your own face- but that ghost of yours goes untouched. It's standing in the middle of the room- its eyes showing the desire to be caressed by those rays. Their shoulders are slumped in defeat, their eyes burning but hanging down- bags laying dark under them in semicircles. They're dressed in a white uniform to blend in with their surroundings- transparent and unseen by all. Except you.

You're staring at them longingly. You want to return to them, but can't. Because you're still alive. You see them now, and when you close your eyes. Their burning eyes embedded in your mind; their face haggard- a depressing expression- that just won't leave you. Hope, yet hopeless. You're sitting right in front of your ghost, on a musty, smoke infested coach from all the cigarettes that it had been in the presence of. It's pungent smell filled your nose, faintly reminding you of your ghost. Nothing else was in the room. The sun's rays, your ghost, yourself, that coffee table with the glare on its surface, and the beaten up couch with holes here and there in its brown cushions.

The pain is irritating, unbearable, disheartening, and getting old. It's becoming the itch that can't be scratched- ever present until you can find a distraction. But with your ghost always near you- hovering over your shoulder, blowing wind in your ear that smelled like them- there was no distraction strong enough. Not enough writing. Not enough work. Not enough anything. So, the agony continues. And even when you're in the middle of a busy sidewalk, walking in the midst of a stream of people- you're back here. In this room. Staring at a ghost that cannot be touched, cannot be warmed, cannot speak. Longing for something that isn't really there. Desiring something that is gone forever.