I keep thinking about you, Ghost
not in the way of wanting you back,
but in missing the idea of you:
your bond, your smile,
your energy that lit up
all those sixth-grade afternoons.

I don’t miss you as you were, though.
Not the patterns, not the chaos,
not the way you used me
when life unraveled in your hands.
Every time, I let you,
believing in the story we told ourselves
a cycle disguised as fate.

It’s been a year of silence now,
a year of no rebounds,
no calls at midnight begging for calm.
And still, your shadow lingers.
Not you, but the thought of you
the memory asking questions
I have no answers for.

Do I need to hear your voice
just to know you’re still alive?
Would closure even help
when the ache is for a version
of you that no longer exists?

Or maybe it’s not about you at all.
Maybe it’s about me,
standing here, too stubborn to let go,
too weary to keep holding on.

Ghost, I’m trying.
Trying to distract myself
from this haunting of “what ifs,”
this endless loop that ends in the same place.

But some ghosts,
they don’t wait for a door to close
they seep through the cracks,
settle in the quiet corners of your mind.

And I wonder,
not if I’ll hear from you,
but if I’ll ever stop
listening for the echo.