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.