The Script

A Tortured Poet’s Regret — No17

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

and i sit
with my ghosts
and wonder when it’s time
to let them loose.

they stare at me
as if they know
what it means
to be alive.

they ask me
to make them
flesh and blood
in words like crimson.

they paint me red,
they kiss me blue,
they color me pink —
and they leave me

black and blue in bruises,
black and white in games,
blush and rouge in sighs —
alive in ways they could never be.

sometimes i wonder
if they might think me
magnificent
if they knew me true.

but, alas, they are ghosts
made for haunting
and not made for loving —
not in this life.

every single day
i cherished them —
and i wrote poems
for each of them.