Ghosts by Briar Chisholm

I knew you through crumpled bed sheets
With tired eyes and morning views
Crawling under blankets and intense teenage blues
It was fast and rough and passionate and yet it was nothing at all
Pushed lips folding together to create a melody that I never learned the notes to
One that never quite caught in my head
Hands moved and fought their way around but I never bothered to win
We passed around bottles and pipes filled with stranger things than I knew
Inhaling our feelings
Gaining a new craving
A craving for touch so the hands got rougher
But in the end the hands would shy away as we gave into the early morning hues
The light streaming through open curtains would rouse us and quickly as I could I would give an excuse to escape
And go back to solidarity in the comfort of my place
Whilst your fingers plucked strings of a song that I didn’t care about
I grasped for one last piece of attention but you gave it all to the tune knowing your mistake
I would leave in succession of three words that were numb to my ears
But by the next week I would give in
And I would be back in those crumpled sheets
Repeating the same mishaps and what ifs and almosts but never enoughs
Until eventually you would go away
And suddenly it would be as if I had discovered that there had been a world around my misery of your place
I became aware of the lack of an obligation to stay and so I saw my chance and took it
I left silent nothings at your door
It was no longer us that occupied that bed, but rather ghosts instead
And who’s to say that when you came back the misery might have gone away
But I was impatient and sick of finding reasons to exclude myself from the world and stay in the interlude with you
Now when the morning light hits me I don’t have to leave
I roll over in my own blue sheets and I feel a warmth like never before
I can see the paths ahead of me and am ready to take them in stride
Learning from this that you do not have to stay to make a person happy
And it is okay to let yourself go without the approval of others
And I am sorry that you will wake up in those sheets alone but that is the only place you ever wanted to be
So now you can stay there like you wanted forever
It just won’t be with me.

 

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