By Skylar Murphy
I’ve fallen in love with a ghost, a man, an angel with crooked wings.
I’ve fallen in love with the way he speaks, every tick and twitch, the way he looks when he’s anxious.
I want to preserve him in poems and picture books.
His soul bears the weight of every cigarette and tear he has shed.
Poor lonely ghost, why do you hide behind closed curtains and mountain man facial hair?
Poor lonely ghost, no one can get close to you,
Only because you are too scared of getting hurt.
So instead, you hurt yourself because it’s easier this way.
Poor lonely ghost, you live inside a cave, insist it’s better being alone with your things and your heavy thoughts.
But the weight, it grows.
Poor soul, you were not built to hold the weight of a lonely man’s world.
With all of his tears and broken hearts and anxieties and cigarettes and sad poetry.
Please take care of yourself, my lonely ghost.
And please try to open to curtains and watch the sunrise.