Ghosting

I don’t know how to say goodbye
I can never find the right words at the time
so I always say “see you later”
even if I know it’s a lie

I hope I become a ghost when I die
so I can stick around instead of relying
on old pictures or poems
to remember me by

if I were a ghost,
I’d watch people walking by, passing through
a whole crowd looking down
and no-one’s talking

overcast skies, puffy eyes
your sound-proofed sighs muffled in flannel
it’s silent at noon
I am a visitor here
I’ll stay quiet and hide
by the streetlight outside
the one with the cracked bulb
and the long shadow in the summertime

if I were a ghost,
I’d haunt those places where
our resonant frequencies were
amplified by pond-water ripples
we drowned in a crescendo of wavelengths
soaked in the deafening dark

I’d return to that place
between the lightning-struck tree and
the dried-up stream for just
a glimpse of
our entwined silhouette
burnt, imprisoned
stained in cement
all tied up with the denim daffodils
in the silver beams of sunlight

if I were a ghost,
I would entranced by 
a floating fleck of dust
so small, but it means the world 
to me, the way we would
waltz around it in free fall
joined at the fingertips
following the threads of your
forgotten fleece sweater 
now wrinkled and creased
and ripped at the seams
hidden under sheets
the color of teeth

my ghost will fade
as people forget
but maybe I’ll stick around 
as I try to remember the shapes
of headlight reflections and graphite shavings
written on wet concrete and notebook paper

I don’t know when I’ll die
but, before I forget
see you later