A Ghost's Story

Gainesville is the status quotidian I’m still living in It’s a place I used to stay Where I now escape to, far from home, trying to recognize yesterday’s affections in today The world has changed but maybe my old friends are still there Maybe they will recognize me and a laugh we’ll then share. I’m chained to this hope, restrained from going forward, getting older, and walking to the light. Just trying to see in today what used to be of my life Without seeing the reasons I can’t even bleed, and without remembering the hands on the stakes and mistakes piercing my back as my life left me here Leaving me a dead spirit to wander but go nowhere Whose touch nobody can feel; it’s just a passing chill down their necks And if anyone laid a hand on this shipwreck It would just go through me no matter how much I wanted to feel its warmth again Nobody hears me; the noise is just a startling crash of glass to the next room’s floor Caused by a force nobody sees anymore A force that is too fragile and fleeting to touch lest it shatter And to the few who see it, it’s a cause much too broken to matter. Because they are as afraid to look as I am afraid to be anything other than a passing apparition Fading as suddenly as it appeared, as easy come and easy go as the last passing season. They can’t touch me today And I’ll never leave this day Tomorrow and yesterday are as distant and vacant as my gaze Looking through you for my former life that left me here with nothing but today.