Content Advisory
These poems touch on depression, self-estrangement, and painful endings. Please read them when you have the space for it.
Aporia publishes imaginative writing. The voices in our contributors' work are literary personae, and should not be read as statements about the writer's own life.
i am the ghost
half of a decade
spent trying to cope
the more i gain sight of
the more i lose hope
billy joel taught me
"all in good time"
but if that were true
then by now i'd be fine
as long as i joke
that's less i can feel
but what happens now
when i don't feel real
hours spent endless
waiting for change
i look in the mirror
and ask for my name
a child was scared
but now i feel fear
i'm so afraid that
i hold nothing dear
if you care, that's
more you can lose;
but what scares me is—
i didn't choose
how does someone care again?
when they still hurt the most
i am haunted by time
yes, i am my ghost
veer
she hurt him and
she never forgave herself
they died on a tuesday in april;
the sky wept.
goodbye my sunshine.
he left her parched
sunbaked and blistering
goodbye my friend.
she left him sorrow
that he carved into his liver
shattered hearts cannot break
they both knew they would never speak again
"i'll be okay."
the truth stood between them, silent,
as she gave him something prettier
with her bow-wrapped goodbye,
she gave him closure.
cannibal in your kitchen
i hope you don't
think of me
on a sunny day
in the middle of autumn
i hope you don't
remember my middle
name or birthday
i hope you—
forget my touch
forget my taste
forget my voice
i hope there is no part
of you
that reaches out
in the middle of the night
grasping blindly
for the shadow of what once was
i hope you threw out my
holiday cards and that
cross stitch i made for you
i hope all our memories fade
and my face becomes a blurry outline
of someone that you might have known
in another life
somewhere far away
let me drift into the ether
like a child's forgotten balloon
rising into the horizon
i refuse to be the ghost in your arbor
or the cannibal in your kitchen
this is my kindest act
and my final farewell
i have said
goodbye
and meant it.
