half

People aren’t whole people anymore.
They’re half people.
Half in, half out.
They half want you but they half don’t.
One half likes the idea but the other half can’t deal with the logistics.
They mean half of what they say and don’t do half of what they mean.
They turn back halfway down the road.
They leave things half-said halfway through.
And the two halves, they don’t communicate. They don’t even speak the same language. So one half doesn’t even realize (except maybe somewhere really deep inside…) that there’s another half and that the two of them could make a whole. And since each half is blind and deaf to the other half people go about their business, perfectly oblivious, thinking they are whole.
In their obvious halfness, they think they are whole.
So they shrug their shoulders.
And they brush the dust off.
Casually. Nonchalantly.
Because when you’re half a person I guess it’s easy to only deal with half the stuff and only carry half the heartache.
(Especially when you get to choose which half to carry.)

Ghosts

I still think about him and my face lights up. I still feel like I belong to him and like he belongs to me and every time I leave the house or get ready to go anywhere it’s like I am going out to meet him, or I will casually bump into him or he’ll call me when I’m halfway there (wherever that is) and we’ll catch up with each other at some point in the day. I feel like I am constantly on the verge of seeing him, or in-between something else and seeing him. I still half-expect him to call at random hours, still half-anticipate receiving half-written SMSs that I can’t quite decipher. I still very much feel him in me and around me all the time, I feel his presence constantly hovering around me in such a strangely palpable way that it just makes it even more inconceivable that he’s cut off all ties with me, that much more inconceivable that he’s probably gone for good. Sometimes I think maybe I’m still in denial.
But I can’t be in denial.
I’ve already cried so much over this, been distraught and disheveled and heart-wrenchingly broken over this.
I’ve gotten up and broken down again. And again. And again.
I’ve said everything I had to say only to discover I had a whole lot more to say and then I said that too.
I’ve dealt with it. I’ve done it. There is nothing inside left to hurt me, just the swollen, tender and bruised remains of a devastating heartache. But that will go with time, they say. Even that will go with time. There’s nothing that won’t go away with time once you’ve released it.
This, what I feel now, is the ghost of what was. It’s a holographic haze that feels real but is actually empty. These are phantom pains.