she** is thin and wiry and so unbelievably charming it
is hard to believe everything she says is not straight out
of a 1980's movie that changed cinematic history
because for once the girl asks out the guy and I am just
a shattered home left battered after a hurricane

she is a ghost and I mean that in every sense of the word,
when she left I felt my brittle bones collapse
inside of my sunken body as if it were a cave
and like acid I dissolved myself into everything
as a distraction to try and forget her but
she still haunts me with her smile and her laugh
and when I sleep I find myself imagining her as the shadows
created by the moonlight

her love was toxic. I know this because her voice still
shouts at me to do things despite the distance that has
grown between us; when I met her I was in a bad place.
I needed someone to be there and she was. she was the
only one who was ever there for me; it was unhealthy and
cataclysmic but she was there and that was more than enough
but then my tears started making her happy and my
anxiety gave her strength and I told myself she wasn't a
problem; until I realized I couldn't distinguish who I used
to be before I met her and she still makes her way into my
life at times but I have found calling her by her real name
scares her. it shows her that I know the mask of deception
she wears and that I am no longer afraid. my therapist asked
what I used to call her, before I knew, I said a friend. I know
now who she truly is and the word still tastes like iron in my
mouth. Depression.

As I sit on
this lingering beach
happily lost within
silent daydreams,
lulled by a rhythmic
surf caressing a
foam laced shoreline

I realize as
the rising sun
paints the sky
in a blush of
pink oleander blooms
while a yawning morning
greets the new day

That I am still
more enchanted by
the rose petal hue
whispered upon her face
when I tell her
how beautiful
she is