Specters

Specters

I wondered for a while after it happened, whether or not I could haunt you for haunting me. I would tip over your water glasses and breathe cryptic whispers into your ear, melting at the sight of tiny bumps upon your neck. I’d smile at your wide eyes and the crude smoke signals of your frightened breaths on the frozen air. It’s silly though, I suppose; ghosts haunting ghosts.

You were selfless that day, and I had been selfless too. We were two magnets repelled by twin poles. You were sorry. You were only thinking of my shot at normalcy. But I didn’t want normal. Not really. I wanted that night in the park.

That night our conversation turned into an embrace that lasted hours. My arms ached the next day. Do you remember how we sat, shivering on that bench in the dark? Our heads burrowed into each other, desperate for freedom from our fleshy cages. I wanted nothing less than being a part of you, or you a part of me. I had a watch but still lost track of time and we got locked in. I could have stayed there all night with you, listening to the chiming song of the night-wind through the manicured trees, but you were past curfew and I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Your tights snagged on the ornate wrought iron as we scaled the locked gate, your silvery thigh shining through like stars at dusk. I felt strong with your waist in my hands as I helped you from the low stone wall.

We walked in silence then, remember? A dreamy, drunken stroll through the near-barren streets? I noticed others by shadows cast across the cobblestone. None of them had faces, just amorphous blurs and charcoal shadows where light and life should be. Your eyes were turquoise under the incandescent lamps and danced when you broke the hush, telling me smiley stories of your lonely childhood. You’d had a teddy bear once, a common object of unfathomable power that kept monsters away. Long before we met you had given it my name, and were certain it was proof that we were supposed to be together. I laughed, shaming you for being young and naive, but I didn’t disagree.

You asked me to kiss you that night. I said no. You thought you had done something wrong, or had imagined the strength of our connection, but I didn’t deserve your lips against mine. That’s my only real consolation now, that I don’t deserve you. Maybe I deserve normal.

Still, you only wanted me. We were on different paths, I told you that, but you left yours and walked blind in the woods to find mine. You ripped your still beating heart from your chest and dangled it in the trees as bait, hoping that I would accompany the wolves possessed by the scent of your blood. I didn’t come for it. I pushed you away, like the night in the darkened room. I’d finally kissed you and couldn’t stop. I pulled you to me, in rapture of your soft body against mine, and the unexpected sweetness of your pillowy pink tongue. That night you offered yourself to me. Again I rejected you. Your pale breast heaved in the half-light as you awaited my response, and your bottom lip disappeared behind your teeth. You laid back, reaching to me in invitation, anticipation of feeling secure beneath my weight. I didn’t deserve your virtue.

That night in the café I told you I loved you, but it was too reluctant and too late. You’d told me countless times before, but I could never respond. I didn’t deserve your love.

Then one night I got what I deserved, or at least what I had coming. The cruel cyclone of our insecurity ripped through our cardboard keep. You thought you didn’t deserve someone who thought they didn’t deserve you, and when he asked you to marry him, you said yes. I had been the only thing keeping you from doing it before, and I hadn’t told you not to.

That night I tore my heart from my chest. I hung it in the tree outside my bedroom window but it was too late. Drops of crimson fell to the snowy ground as it beat, dangling from the branch. But I had not ventured from my path to save yours before. I let you bleed, drain cold on the dark forest floor and become the enchanting ghost you are; unable to save me from becoming the same.

You haunt me now. I’ve found the normal you wanted me to have, but you still taint it, whispering of velvety nights too perfect to be real. Your smile boasts on the back of my eyelids and denies me sleep. Every soft pink mouth is yours, but still somehow not the same. She’s not you, and I want to believe that he’s not me.

Carolynn Staib, 2011 

cfstaib@gmail.com