Nine years later
Would I rather not have met you?
Seven years later
Would I rather not have fallen in love?
Six years later
Are second chances worth giving?
One year later
Fool me three times and I am a joke

I am not the ghost I thought I was
You are the ghost instead
Ghost that runs in my veins
Ghost that still inhabits my dreams
Ghost I often think about
I need to lay your ghost to rest

Because now you are happy
Now you are whole
I am the one who sulks in darkness and hates their own reflection
I am he who writes about time that passes and love that fades
I am the deathly cliché of a boy who once  loved a girl and now is nothing more than a phantom
What difference is there between the phantom I have become and the ghost you are to me?
Can I exorcise these spirits?
Can my conscious return to solid form?
What chains do I rattle except for those I forged with my own bad timing my own poor choices and my own disillusion?

I must lay your ghost to rest before it kills me
But I can't bring myself to do it
In quiet moments I bridge our past failures to future hopes and my present becomes limbo
I can barely look people in the eye anymore
I avoid it so they can't see that I am never truly there
I made you this ghost in my mind
You and I made me a phantom
You won't forgive me and that's ok
I can't forget you
And I will have to learn
How to make it work
Ghosts are only as real as your willingness to let them into your mind
The door has long been open
And you are always welcome in