What do I do with missing you like this?

Where does it go? What can I say?

I could repeat it all day, in all the moments I think of you. And I find your ghost once again, but it's not quite like before. I could see your eyes, tree rings marked on them. Now it seems they've been cut down, felled.

Your words have faded out. Your handwriting too.

I remember you from the pictures and the ticket stubs and the gifts you've left for me.

I hang onto every piece I can.

The sun still shines on the corners where you used to be. Where your laughted bounced off and it clinged to my ears. Where secrets were told.

Our (now broken) home, you changed every part of it. From artworks to starlight, and the smell of baking too. Constellations pasted on the ceiling, some with less than stellar names.

Songs about bears sung in the shower. Therapy chickens under pillow forts.

Sick days, making guides for games about countries that don't exist.

People who I refuse to acknowledge that share the same name I used to call you with.

Everything comes tumbling back to me. And for a moment, I feel like I can reach out again, on the other side of the bed.

And I break. None of that exists anymore.

It's more the being Unknown. Unseen. Unlistened to.

I tried pretending I couldn't see you anymore. A lie told a million times becomes truth, isn't it

...Except it's not. I feel like crumbling every time I pretend I don't. It's a lie by itself, denying the haunting. My words don't even make sense to me anymore.

Maybe I was the ghost all along. I wasn't really present.

Puzzle pieces can fit but not make the right picture. And you can't turn back time.

The moment I leave this Earth, I want to be remembered by anything but what I became.

Put a merch table filled with my favorite things, memories and laughter as currency.

Trade bracelets. Turn off the lights. Fill the space with neon glowsticks and lava lamps.

Blast all my favorite songs, and sing out loud.

Bring out the mozarella sticks, and the dinosaur nuggets, and all the ice cream from Dairy Queen.

Pets are allowed. Friends are too. Everyone will be welcome with a hug and a "Who are you?".

Let each other be seen. Be known. Be heard.

Everything I could never be.

When I go, I'm gone.

I don't expect to remain in any way.

Please cherish the memories and the laughter. The friends you've made.

It's how we see each other that lives forever that way.

There's no hate. That's a fact.

Paths misaligned. It's a close certain probability.

I can't seem to determine the complete set of variables, though.

How to stop my head from wanting to shut down.

What could I have done. (not enough not enough not enough)

How much of me is broken.

To find out how to be happy again.

How to find solace in a place that's split in half. A home that can be no more.

I don't know myself anymore. I've become a number I cannot calculate. An unsolvable problem.

Put my memories into boxes, into folders, into storage spaces. I don't want them anymore.

Where do I go from here?

You never really know when it's the last time for anything.

The last kiss, holding you close.

Telling you about the trees talking, and wanting to touch the stars.

To whisper your name in the middle of the night, telling you abour nonsense that I couldn't wait to share.

The last holiday, learning to play the spoons and driving toy cars through the purple carpet.

The last dance.

The last trip to the beach, faceplanting into the ocean.

I lost my colors. Lost my lucky penny. I lost the things that would've come with time.

There's no more light.

It's then about the frozen present.

Clothes half folded, unfinished puzzles too.

Presents that were saved for a future encounter, now waiting in drawers for nothing.

Streaks that are unsure to be continued.

Concert tickets that will sing to an empty seat.

Places that still go through their own time, unaware of future dates that will not come.

Pictures that smile to things that do not exist anymore.

There's no more Christmas in July. Independence day in February.

No more four walls that belong to an Us.

No more nightrogen.

We never got the desert and the stars and the cherry trees and a safer scene.

I keep freefalling onto my own feet, lead shoes pulling me down.

Everything crumbles. I ghost away.

The sheet goes over my head.

I tried to stay present way too late.

~I should've loved you better.~

It starts with counting in threes. Three ice cubes for my coffee. Three steps behind other people. Three soft kisses.

Why do horses need horseshoes?

Open the fridge and close it again. I forgot what I was even looking for. Open it back again. Did it change at all? Close. Open again and pick something. Close.

What if I started making my own butter and bread?

Choose the same everyday shorts. Same everyday shoes. Everyday necklace. Until they get replaced by the new ones when they start falling apart. You have several pairs, but they are for special ocassions. Things need to be used for a specific purpose.

Are sharks smooth or rough skinned? Do they like to be pet?

Avoid eating with others, people who aren't safe. The sounds they make. The way they criticize what you eat. The loud clattering sounds of china and shriek.

What song would play at my funeral? I hope it's a fun one.

Touch every piece of clothing before you even consider putting it against your skin. Is it soft? Artificially so? Does it feel hot?

Put it back on the shelf, go see the pretty one you saw from the other one. No, not that one. It has the weird crease on the shoulder. Same as the sweater on the other shop. Next.

What do other people see as red?

T-rex arms are comfy. So is tapping my fingers together. Drumming on invisible heads, picturing the comfortable tap tap tap they make.

Is there a sound no one has ever made?

Look at the mirror but not at your eyes.

Is my face actually my face?

Stay up all night going through 21 different scenarios. Different songs. Different ways you could change your own life.

... Can I?

I see the tiny marker on your chat window, dancing its soft bleeping motion. Are you asleep on the other side of that blink? Are you dreaming of starlight and cotton candy? Are you waiting for something?

Or maybe you're looking at the night outside on the roof. The soft sounds of the sleeping city echoing. You see the leaves rustling in the dark.

It's lonely, isn't it?

We're all leaving.

There's the constant fear of never actually being okay. That you'll keep hurting others, and everything about you is wrong, from head to toe.

And I can't hold you. Not tonight. I'm just these letters on a page.

Take a deep breath, and I'll grab your hands. I'll be the spot to place your wary mind.

Try to find beauty in the shadows around you. In the sleeping birds and the sky stars and the ground stars. Write poems about dust dancing in front of the stage lights.

Of fairy homes and warm blankets. Christmases in the middle of April, and New Year's Eve in July. Paint strokes and soft melodies played on an old piano.

Feel the ridges on my fingernails, and the scars on my skin. Tousled hair on playful eyes.

We aren't our pain, but the steps we take away from it. Trying to find meaning in how we interact with others, how we connect.

Go to sleep, I'll carry you inside.

You're safe at home, at least for now.

It’s the forgotten things, really.

The quiet reminders of someone who isn’t there at the present, but longs to be.

A lonely sock. A tiny bottle of shampoo. A shirt or a sweatshirt.

Dreams hidden beneath a pillow. Promises inside the icebox.

It’s the memories that impregnate the walls and the canvases and the picture frames.

Makes the space come alive with memories and nostalgia.

There’s a chapstick on the table that wasn’t there before. Fairy lights that were hung with 4 hands present. Skies observed from the balcony chairs.

How much of oneself is left behind with each of these memories. They exist only in the space they were created, then remembered like old sepia pictures inside a cigar box.

We come together in those forbidden places, waiting to feel a bit complete once again.

I've always wanted to grow a garden, to have lovely plants to look at. All sorts of colors and shapes and ways to kiss the sunlight.

I started with a seed, and the rain washed it away. So I tried again, dehydration its end.

I tried growing another in water and it rotted. Tried again next week, and it wilted away.

So I bought a small plant next. It was good for a bit, and it outgrew its pot. I put it in a bigger one and it went sad and gray. Switched places, moved the soil with no avail. I saw it die with every passing day.

Got a full grown plant, and things would seem to be okay. But its leaves started falling, and stems went curved. And I was left with a huge pot full of nothing like I knew I would.

It's supposed to be easy. Friends have them all around their place. Salesmen tell me it's for dummies. My family's keep blooming every season.

So why can't I grow plants like everyone else?

I feel stupid and sad and so damn frustrated because I can't seem to do it right, no matter what I do. I forget and I try and I keep killing plants. I'm the only one that seems to be bound to ruin everything I touch.

I follow the guidelines, I do my research. I ask every person that seems to know their way around them.

But my plants keep dying and wiltering and rotting. And my loneliness grows every passing moment.

I long for my garden, my herbs, and their leaves. I long for the seedlings that grow in the spring.

I picture the flowers, bees in their leaves. I see all the lillies, sunflowers, tulips.

So I sit in the rain, with my rusty water can. Watering a garden that simply just can't.

Of course this is not about plants at all, though the struggle is real.

We each have our garden, we each have our dreams.

If you've ever been haunted, you know what I'm talking about.

Of the shadows dancing in the corner of your eye. The voices that are never there, but keep whispering. Objects keep being lost, things out of order, out of their assigned space.

Ghosts look like the memories you've forgotten, but that your mind keeps reminding you of. A slight shiver on the back of your neck, and a silent prayer that it'll go away soon. You focus on work, focus on music, focus on that puzzle that's missing a couple of pieces. The shiver remains.

Go to bed, try to get some rest. Try to close your eyes with the whispers echoing on the empty walls. Blankets feel safe, lights are warm. And yet, there's that corner that is always cold, always in shadows. No matter how much you rearrange the room or paint the walls, it's always there. Echoing. Waiting. Feeding on a single drop of decanted fear going down your spine.

You feel them when memories repeat, when you're home alone. When you feel like a little kid going down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. How vulnerable and tiny it can feel. Your flashlight starts flickering and the shadows get bigger. And you got nowhere to run. The hallway extends infinitely, and you shrink. You whimper and you cry and there's no way out. The ghosts are near, and you wish it was just dead people under old raggedy blankets, or souls trying to find their way. But these ghosts are much more real. They're made of flesh and bone and everything that's wrong.

You curl up and wait for them to pass. And eventually they do.

Ghosts like that are burglars, taking your hope and your light and your shine.

They're hungry and mean. Bad bad bad.

Daylight comes in and things are back into place. Except your own mind.

Everything is a little out of place. A little bit blurry. You're not even sure you're even real.

Maybe what they do is make you a bit of a ghost yourself. Until you wander and cover your face with a sheet, and hope it'll be better tomorrow. You isolate and haunt your own home, your own life. You see others through a veil, you can't be part of the living.

'Till you vanish, alone, all dust.