sjsprWriting

He is there in a flash of blue that catches your eye, or a coat wrapped around someone else’s shoulders. You brush against his arm in crowded streets, fingers almost touching; you meet his eyes in the rearview mirror; you hear his name fall from someone else’s lips.

He is there in a rustle of feathers, an electric charge in the tips of your fingers, a warm breath of air on the back of your neck; he is there, right behind you, he is always there.

He walks alongside you, just out of sight; you see his smile out of the corner of your eye.

He is there when the mattress dips beside you, when you feel the soft touch of a hand on your shoulder or an easy warmth against your back, and as you drift somewhere between sleep and waking, you feel his fingers curl around your face, his cheek against yours.

His ghost is always there, an echo of every emotion you ever felt towards him, a maddening rush of love and anger and fear and honest-to-god need; his ghost is the guilt that sleeps below the surface, the whiskey you pour down your throat, and his absence leaves a hollow ache right where your heart used to rest.

And if he haunts you, it is only because you beg him to.

He wraps his arms around you, licking against your teeth, pressing back against your touch, and you can’t remember how it felt to love him, only how it feels to grieve him; your memories are tarnished with loss.

He whispers your name in your ear, he breathes against your neck. He pushes against you, drawing closer than he ever was in life, closer to you than anything has ever come before; he’s under your skin, he’s in your blood, you taste him in the back of your throat when you swallow your tears.

He is there in your dreams, clawing at the windows, slipping under the door; he begs, let me in, let me in, and when you wake you find yourself scratching through the salt lines, flinging opening the windows, rushing to the door; you call his name, you shout, where are you? oh, where are you?

Stay with me, you beg.

He slips inside your bones.

Drive me crazy, send me back to hell, you plead, because as long he haunts you, he can’t really be gone.

And he whispers, I will.