Your Love Is The Ghost That Haunts Me

Because it’s never been
solid.
Something I can hold in my hand,
a physical thing,
a piece of you to touch
and caress
and know it’s there for good.
A worry stone
like my grandmother had.

I have my wedding ring,
sure,
and I run the pad of my thumb
over it
the way she used to do
on the stone of her own
when I was a child.

You haunt me,
you know,
even in life —
even as we hold each other
and say “I love you”
and promise each other the world.

You haunt me because
there is always the threat
of you being gone.
There is always the idea
that you could be HERE
and then NOT —
you could be something I loved
and then lost
and then was forever without.

It doesn’t matter that it hasn’t happened yet —
it’s the idea.
It’s there.

You haunt me
in the perfect way we fit together,
two puzzle pieces in a broken world
that just so happened
to find each other.

You are the ghost
walking through the halls of my mind
at all hours of the day, reminding me
how you laugh
how you smile
how you touch me in just the right way.

Please don’t ever be gone.
Please stay
because I want to stay
no matter how hard things might be.

Please stay
because the ghost of you
is just that —
a ghost —
the terrifying idea
that you might leave.

I need you
not to be
a ghost.

Because,
if it’s up to me,
I’ll keep you —
forever.

I’ll keep you,
a whole, live thing,
and cherish you
the way you deserve.

I only hope
it’s what I deserve
too.