In Your Memories Is the Ghost of Me

A Poem

Photo by Andy Li on Unsplash

do you ever fear the dark,
not because of the monsters
that may lurk in the shadows
but that cold creep
of the unknown?

I wanted to know the story,
so I followed you into the fields
even as I lost myself over and over,
a memory doomed to repeat.

do you ever sing to yourself
just to block out the blanket
of silence lingering, ghostly,
in all these hollow spaces
breeding emptiness?

I wanted to keep you in my heart,
no matter what the others said,
because you were my marrow
in a cold, cold world.

do you ever avoid the cracks
in the stained sidewalks
under pitter-patter of rain —
and come out the other side,
just waiting for peace?

I wanted to follow you,
wherever you would go,
but there were no answers
about what the future held.