Ghosts on Board

I think it’s hilarious that last night I was writing about you like you were a haunting. As if you needed a eulogy. And I’m sure you’ll get one when you actually die. But I wanted to mourn you like you were a tragedy. Thank the Gods for mornings like this–that remind me how overly melodramatic writers’ minds can be. Especially when you are so long past an era and you still want to mourn its people.

Today you were in front of somebody else’s phone, drunk out of your mind. Still a boy. Still that boy I knew. And I noticed for the first time in nearly four years how far I’ve sailed from the mainland. I haven’t seen it in ages but my imagination is so strong, in my eye, it’s all still there when I look back. 

I might have pictured you waving at me still. At least glancing to where I’d disappeared, just as often as I glanced back at you. 

And that video, that got sent and sent again so that by some stroke of luck I got to see it, blew away the haze I kept around myself that smelled like your cologne. 

How ridiculous I was for quietly hanging on to something that was no longer there. I won’t punish myself for it, because I think this feeling is more than enough. Now I can wave to the mist as it recedes and promise to not mourn people unless they’re dead. I feel like the mist agrees. 

Stop looking for ghosts. 

They say artists are the true masochists. We rip ourselves apart for entertainment. But there is a difference between painting with blood that rushes out from a battle wound and digging into your skin, making it sprout, for some semblance of warmth when you have nothing left. We have to learn to be alright. Learn to not pick at our scabs. And let the past fade into specks and eventually into nothing. 

There is a reason why some of us hop on boats that sail far and wide. 

All sailors hallucinate what they left on the mainland at some point. Just don’t let it drive you insane. Or worse. Drive you back to where you started.