The Ghosts Have Left
Sometimes you try so hard to forget, but thoughts, touch, moments don’t desert you, and you carry them like a bag of sticks on your back wherever you go.
But sometimes, you try very hard to remember what it was that you felt, what you saw, what you were – but nothing comes. The more I try to remember, the more I realize I can’t. I try in vain, I sit looking at old photos, but still nothing comes. I cannot relate to what I see. The girl in the photos is 20. She is me, but I don’t know her. She was me in some other life.
I look at him. I don’t know him either. I can’t remember how they lived, how they talked, how they sat every morning with their coffee and cigarettes, reading the papers, living their life in that room near the tree, in that place with coloured lights and candles and cushions and their books and their music, and their friends, and their discussions…their endless discussions, their endless dreams…soon their endless fights…like two brothers turned foes…when they became one, they devoured each other, till there was nothing left, and soon…when they decided to become their old selves again, they realized the old selves had left them… like a haunted house without ghosts…
I can’t remember my childhood, my love, my writing, my ambition, my laugh…he can’t remember his…today I tried to focus. I tried to think what it was that I wanted from life. I could think of nothing. I still want to live, but I don’t know why. My only dream was to write. Now it’s not. Now it’s nothing.
I’m numb. I never wanted to be. I tried to cry today, to feel. The tears rolled down, but I still didn’t feel. I’m cold, clinical and detached. I’m my own opposite. My alter ego. And my own soul mate. And I don’t fear losing any of them any more. I don’t fear forever with them either. Either ways it doesn’t matter.
The ghosts have left. The house is empty. And empty houses don’t tempt guests…just a wayward traveler now and then. Their company is welcome, but they don’t stay long either. They came because they heard stories from far away of a haunted house. Now they’re disappointed. So they leave. And the house laughs to itself, and enjoys the cobwebs and the musty air, where no living creatures survive for too long….
Sometimes you try so hard to forget, but thoughts, touch, moments don’t desert you, and you carry them like a bag of sticks on your back wherever you go.
But sometimes, you try very hard to remember what it was that you felt, what you saw, what you were – but nothing comes. The more I try to remember, the more I realize I can’t. I try in vain, I sit looking at old photos, but still nothing comes. I cannot relate to what I see. The girl in the photos is 20. She is me, but I don’t know her. She was me in some other life.
I look at him. I don’t know him either. I can’t remember how they lived, how they talked, how they sat every morning with their coffee and cigarettes, reading the papers, living their life in that room near the tree, in that place with coloured lights and candles and cushions and their books and their music, and their friends, and their discussions…their endless discussions, their endless dreams…soon their endless fights…like two brothers turned foes…when they became one, they devoured each other, till there was nothing left, and soon…when they decided to become their old selves again, they realized the old selves had left them… like a haunted house without ghosts…
I can’t remember my childhood, my love, my writing, my ambition, my laugh…he can’t remember his…today I tried to focus. I tried to think what it was that I wanted from life. I could think of nothing. I still want to live, but I don’t know why. My only dream was to write. Now it’s not. Now it’s nothing.
I’m numb. I never wanted to be. I tried to cry today, to feel. The tears rolled down, but I still didn’t feel. I’m cold, clinical and detached. I’m my own opposite. My alter ego. And my own soul mate. And I don’t fear losing any of them any more. I don’t fear forever with them either. Either ways it doesn’t matter.
The ghosts have left. The house is empty. And empty houses don’t tempt guests…just a wayward traveler now and then. Their company is welcome, but they don’t stay long either. They came because they heard stories from far away of a haunted house. Now they’re disappointed. So they leave. And the house laughs to itself, and enjoys the cobwebs and the musty air, where no living creatures survive for too long….
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