ghosts

i don't talk about you anymore.

at least, i make the effort not to. but of course there are those who simply can't let this die, won't let it die, like you so blatantly have. keeping it alive is not a concern of mine anymore. why struggle for life when all is left is a shell? i was extinguished. i was reawakened. reawakened only to decay once more.

and now i am hollow.

although i may speak no evil, it doesn't work the same way for seeing or hearing.

it's not as bad anymore. more like the dulled pain of a drug induced dream. shots of the unfeeling course through my veins, yet the pain still lingers below the surface, simply masked by distraction and coincidence. your presence is still very much here, as indirectly as it may possibly seem.

you run through the lives of friends and loved ones, always skipping through mine like a mirage, a memory. skipping over it in your graces like a bruised peach in the supermarket, favoring other more savory fruits of love. fruits that don't give the air of inevitable rot emanating from their toxic cores.

lately i've found myself returning to my shallow waters of safer seductions, flirting with the boys in the car next to ours, aquiescing to dates with inbred testosterone producers, desperately fumbling in the dark for that feeling of warmth, of closeness i crave, achieved only by cheapened bursts of heavy breathing, groping hands and forced false moans.

despite my happy face, my laugh, my bitter "fuck men, girl power" attitude...it still doesn't change the fact that i get cold at night. that those songs don't mean anything anymore to anyone, except me. that i still shiver when i think of the first time you touched me.

we can't change our ghosts.