A Strange Sort of Death

AND EVERYONE ALWAYS GETS IT WRONG, NOBODY SURVIVES SUICIDE, YOU DIE HALF OR YOU DIE WHOLE BUT YOU DIE ALL THE SAME.

I feel like a detective

brushing down
a crime scene,
or perhaps a
runaway bride,
hiding in plain sight.
Lost
but not gone,
the fingerprints
washed away,
the murder weapon
left behind.

There's no past like it,
and no future to follow;
a ghost that
breathes,
a newborn that
doesn't.

I feel
like the 
final chapter, 
and nothing
more.

I haunt,
I linger,
I remain,
though only in
death and decay.
Though only as a ghost.

My mother 
taught me that.
My mother taught me 
how to haunt,
how to be there but
not really.

How to be
a ghost that
breathes,
or, perhaps,
a newborn that
doesn't.

Author's Note

This is a rewrite of my most recent poem, Just Look, Just Watch, I'm Right Here, I'll Always be Right Here. The reason I didn't just edit that one is because I currently can't decide which one is better.