I feel like a detective
brushing down
a crime scene,
or perhaps a
runaway bride,
hiding in plain sight.
Lost
but not gone,
the fingerprints
washed away,
the ****** weapon
left behind.

There's no past like it,
and no future to follow;
a ghost that
breathes,
a newborn that
doesn't.
I feel
like the
final chapter,
and nothing
more.

I haunt,
I linger,
I remain,
though only in
death and decay.
Though only as a ghost.

My mother
taught me that.
My mother taught me
how to haunt,
how to be there but
not really.

How to be
a ghost that
breathes,
or, perhaps,
a newborn that
doesn't.