there's a ghost waiting for me at the dinner table
it tells me stories as I make black coffee
of how adult sadness awaits
how the acrid isn't enough to wash my sins away
i've grown close to this ghost as it tells me more truth
than the people who pretend they don't hear when i'm rude
the silence filling up the space of needed rebuke
embarrassment to rehabilitate my crimes
but i wonder
will it ever leave me?
my closest friend
but it often deceives
lying for survival
selling my heart for free
so on this rainy day perhaps i'll put milk in
to soften my grown-up gaze
to let the ghost slip away
find happiness in the fog so gray
and stop haunting my repeating days