Haunted by Loss
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HAUNTED BY LOSS
I linger at the edges of their rooms, a soft distortion in the air where their breath fogs and mine does not. They speak my name like it is a charm to call me back, though I have nothing left that answers to sound. Memory tethers me with threads they cannot see, knotted from birthdays and arguments and every quiet minute we wasted thinking there would be more.
Each day I thin a bit further, losing the weight of my longing in pieces, like dust from a forgotten curtain.
Their grief tries to sculpt me into something solid, a shape that can sit at the table again, though my place has already been filled with silence. I drift through their need and feel it tug like a tide, but tides are for bodies that still belong to a shore.
I am learning the art of departure, a slow untying of all the knots their hearts have sworn to protect. Let them keep the photographs that still shine with my former light. They loved me fiercely. I hope someday they love me enough to let me go.
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Ghost at the window--
love clings to their uncut threads,
time grants my release.
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This Halloween haibun (prose/haiku combo) shared with the guys and ghouls over at DVerse Poets Pub, thanks for the prompt, it was a treat.
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Their holding on is scary
ReplyDeleteMuch♡love
Lovely and haunting haibun, Chris. Maybe that's how some spirits remain instead of moving on from the bardo. George Saunders wrote a book called, "Lincoln in the Bardo," where Abe won't let his son go...
ReplyDeleteThis is a great perspective... a dear one not allowed to leave... we should definetely let them
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote from the ghost’s perspective, Chris, and the way it lingers ‘at the edges of their rooms, a soft distortion in the air’. I can believe that memory would tether a ghost with threads ‘knotted from birthdays and arguments and every quiet minute we wasted thinking there would be more’. It’s not hard to imagine that thinning and ‘losing the weight of…longing in pieces, like dust from a forgotten curtain’. Stunning prose and haiku.
ReplyDeleteNicely done, wicked words.
ReplyDeleteA haunting, cautionary tale about attachment and grief. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteA wonderfully atmospheric write - Jae
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