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Her ghost has trapped me in a hall of mirrors

Each reflection only able to catch the smoke from my heels

The dust has settled but you can never

Press the soil back down after you’ve disturbed it

And oh God how I’ve disturbed

You can run so fast that the speed gun’s screen cracks

But within every spider web fracture

Is a girl who you buried

…

Her hand emerges from a shallow, rushed grave

Grasping for yours, begging you to take hold

But you won’t

To touch her skin again is to grant her reality

It’s admitting she was ever alive to begin with

And how can you forget like that?

I know it isn’t to forget,

Oh God, I know I never can

…

The fractals stare back at me

I can only see struggle

She fought, and she scrapped

But the shit she took was all in vain

The bruises and spit coat her like a pollock

An abstract representation of something who used to be someone

…

Never again can she be the positives

I strip her of her joy and her love

All you are is a chew toy and I’m done teething

I hope you fucking rot in that grave

You stupid, stupid child

You should’ve known better

Did you ever care how it would look?

Did you ever think about how it might feel?

…

But she didn’t

The same way a child doesn’t think how

Hard the ground below is

When the sky is just so tempting

Am I any different?

In a lot of ways I think she was better than me

More ambitious, kind, and daring

I was wrong

Oh God, can you forgive me?

Can you forgive me for the girl?

Can you forgive me for myself?

It’s not so hard for him but I am here on the earth…

The ground.

And so I pack the dirt beneath my still, silent shoes

I let a bouquet of flowers fall to the grave…

She fills my now empty grip with her own hand

And we embrace

Knowing that neither of us has to be buried

After all