Ghost (Poetry)

Ghost

Ghost (noun):
a being who has passed away
manifesting themselves to the living
for reasons they will never know.

Ghost (verb):
to write as an anonymous author,
letting others take credit for your words,
including subtle critiques of politics
without putting yourself in danger.

Ghost (verb):
to suddenly disappear from a relationship
without an explanation or reason,
then avoiding human confrontation,
pretending to have mysteriously died.

Ghost (noun, you):
Flashbacks of the two of us,
an image haunting me every day;
your voice echoing in my head,
making me hate myself
for all the mistakes I ever made
(the biggest one was trusting you).

Ghost (verb, you):
to have the pain linger around,
waking me abruptly from a nightmare,
cutting over the unhealed wounds,
dictating how strangely I act around people
because I am afraid of getting hurt again.

Ghost (verb, you):
to disappear or vanish the way you did,
running away with stolen money,
blocking any channel of communication,
erasing the love we had once shared.

Ghost (wishful noun):
I try to think of us, to think of you,
instead, I picture a fragmented soul,
a manifestation of your worst.
It is that ghost who torments me,
riles me up with anger and hatred,
makes me wish you are just a ghost
who is now harmless and dead.

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_{Poetry by Jeremy Mifsud
Photo by Stefano Pollio on Unsplash}