The Ghost

You came over that last night with so much running through your head. Your eyes filled with tears, I begged you to stay. You said you wouldn't, you wanted me to sleep and you knew I couldn't with you there. I didn't care, something was making me keep you there.

I let you fall asleep the way you were laying when we spoke our last words. When you were asleep, it seemed as if your pain didn't exist and I could fool myself into thinking everything was right. You were on top of my covers, but I curled up next to you and pulled over the corner that was left; it barely covered my hip. I didn't sleep that night, afraid if I moved or made even a small adjustment, you would wake up and leave. I didn't want to risk that, something in me told me that would be the last time I would see you, I wanted to feel you next to me as long as I could. I feared the pain of having that blanket to myself.

In the few weeks we had, I discovered what I was capable of feeling. Before that, the love I once knew now seemed young and unrecognizable compared to what I felt in the presense of your life. The fact that this was not our decision, this couldn't possibly be the fate we were meant to have, was helplessness I also had never previously known. When you woke, the goodbye at the door has since been frozen in my thoughts. The light from the windows, the morning confusion of no sleep, the way the porch would feel once you walked off it for the last time.

You were forced to disappear after that, and I'm forever left laying next to you on the bed with the corner of the blanket trying not to wake you. I'm still not ready for you to wake up and leave.