Story

I lost a lot last year.

She wakes up every morning

To the cold metallic tang

Of another day.

The harsh light, the searing clarity, the blinding awareness.

She gets up to brush her teeth

And sighs hello to the first ghost of the day.

Goodmorning, lover.

Haven't seen you since my eyes fell shut.

She wakes up every morning

Afraid to live.

Do you know the feeling?

To open your eyes on a world you did not choose,

And dread going out into it.

Dealing with it.

Fitting in it.

As she pulls her stockings on

Another ghost sits by her window

And pulls hers on as well.

And she grimaces.

The memory of who used to sit there.

No one sits there now.

No one ever sits there now.

As she paints on her face

And brushes away the cadaverous shadows beneath her eyes

Someone is there behind her in the mirror

Smiling and trying to steal a kiss.

No one is there behind her

With fingers at her hips.

As she goes to lock her door,

As she hails a cab to work,

As she walks the street to lunch,

The ghosts follow her.

There in her favorite cafe that she will never set foot in again.

And there on the street corner back when it was still cold out.

Now the vendor sells his icecream cones,

Then he sold hot chocolate and tender promises.

She walks into the world

Too bright, too loud, too cold.

Hello, lover.

Haven't seen you since I last blinked.

She supposes

Absently sipping her coffee in the new cafe


That some people just live this way

And that now she is one of them.

She spends her days carefully ignoring her shadows

Carefully finding the sacred places

Where they will not show their happy faces

Because their happiness never blossomed there.

She finds her new path,

Knowing that it is in vain.

For every night she returns to the same home,

And the same knowledge

That it is no longer home to her.

And at night she falls asleep,

Curled up against her unforgiving world,

Dreading that tomorrow,

It will all have to be done again.

Dealt with, again.

Survived again.

And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

And the reason she does it

Is so that one of those tomorrows

Someone will come and shatter her cold shiny world,

And chase away the shadows to keep her warm again.

Author's Note

The staccato feel is intentional, to show her loss of connection to the world.