Phantoms You Have Carried

The clearest blue became mottled with age, and I only recently began to notice. Time-soaked eyes, foggy mirror to my own, reflecting a frail wire, just out of reach. Leading to a skull-shaped cellar, therein lay the contents, shadows, wavering in small glimmers of truth. Reserved but yearning, they call to me. Whispers carress my lobes; they are phantoms you have carried. They ride on waves of joy and anguish, snapshots of my tiny feet trodding down halls, chasing cats with remote-control race cars. Then I tumbled over a carpeted ledge and bent your office-drawer key. Maybe you'd suspected those young paws were much stronger than they looked. As time sped all around me, your atmosphere grew thin, and labored breathing stole the spark from your limbs. When cells began to replicate like narcissists in the West, your hovel became a war zone, and I, a refugee. You never caught your breath in the wreckage, and when a second bout of war came, your lungs gave out. I watched it happen, at a loss. I remember your mouth agape, eyes glazed, wide, as, in your final breath, you ran towards something I could not see. Now, the battleground you once crawled through has been cleared of every trace, every tuft of dog hair, and all the shining documentation to prove you were an artist. And how you were an artist, having sculpted so much of my lanky willow limbs, my dense, ferocious heart. I have a case of survivor's guilt. I am writing every day a mystery, wading through my own metaphysical mess, only faintly aware of yours, the stuff that lingers like shadow people, darting in and out of my peripheral vision. I only wish they'd speak to me and divulge what last you saw, or that I could re-activate your smart phone and read the very last text message you sent.