A Haunting

You never have to look back, you never have to see me, I am just a ghost brushing through the intricate lacework of your life.

I cross over many ribbons, leaving little details captured other threads, a smile or laugh or teardrop, but my string is bare.

Do not pity me. While I am only a shadow at the edge of the photo or the hands holding the lens, I still get to see and feel.

A privilege to me is bearing witness to your happiness. For it is that which reflects my own even if I can never recall the emotion.

The invisibility comes later. After the interaction of the day when I find no way to keep hold of the memories. They float away.

When we no longer talk and all I have is a fading summer photo. I doubt if I was ever there, that I left any impression at all.

Calling seemed too much a bother when all I had to bare were the troubles of my soul. Who wants to hear another gutting effect of a broken home?

Parents split all the time. So why should I still ache from it as if the breakup blade is lodged in my heart?

So I didn’t call or message or reach out. I folded in and when no one noticed I lost myself. I became the ghost.

You never have to look back. You never have to see me. I left my mark in your history. Forgotten or not it’s there, trapped in your past. A haunting.