Ghosts of the Past

There’s too many things that remind me of the past. It’s an everlasting, inescapable cycle.

 In my opinion, the past should never touch elbows with the future. But the past shows up in every glance of my eye, every shadow cast on the street, they remind me of him. What he did to me, what I endured because of him, how I still longed for him despite the pain. It seems unfair to me that he has been allowed by God to do what he does. It’s the same every time. He slithers his way into your mind, infects it with his melancholy scent, intoxicates you, until you are no longer in control. 

He wore the suit of a blessing, but only when he stripped down to his very skin did you realise what he truly is. A parasite. He takes your life straight from your hands and disappears without a wisp of air in his wake. He was gone. Gone, gone, gone and there was nothing I could do. The streets were paved with his memory, and with every step I took upon their gravel I heard his voice echo and tap along with my shoes meeting the ground. Every day I walk down this street, and not a single day is without him in it. I hated it here, but yet I couldn’t bear to leave. 

The street lights casted long shadows onto the dimly lit path. It was night. Why did the night remind me of him? I don’t remember anymore. Stars shine brighter in the night, I tried to remind myself. 

He had died many years ago. Drank arsenic. I’d heard arsenic has no taste or smell. A silent, but deadly killer. A poison that suited him well. Silent and deadly. In a way, he was my arsenic. Why do I crave poison?

I stopped walking. I stopped moving, just for a moment. I wanted to see if silence would engulf the screaming of my thoughts until I couldn’t hear them anymore. It just made room for them to scream louder in my mind, so I started walking again. 

I looked ahead. The blanket of the night covered most of the path, but I could see about 3 feet in front of me. Pebbles and moss laid about on the ground, layered upon each other. I could hear the rustling and swaying of trees that were just out of my sight. At least it wasn’t completely silent. 

It was the swaying of the trees. It triggered my brain, my memory flooded. I closed my eyes, and stopped walking. Painted on the back of my eyelids was a ghost of the past. It was him. His golden brown hair shone in the sun and he smiled from the apples of his cheeks, his eyes gleamed. 

Around him the trees swayed and the grass of the rolling hills seemed to pulse and wave in unison with the breeze. It was only him. He was the focal point of the scene, running around gleefully on that fine spring morning. I was there. It was no longer night, and I could feel him urging me to follow him. 

He looked in my eyes, he stared right into them with his own. They couldn’t be ignored, his eyes were irresistible. They begged me to come with him. Everything in me screamed that I should walk the other way but I couldn’t. His illusion fooled me again. 

I submitted myself to him. Once again. I threw myself to him, and kissed his soft, beautiful, beautiful lips. Every touch was like electricity, my senses seemed to be heightened so much it disoriented me. I heard his breath in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me. That was the only thing that mattered. That I was here in his arms, his glowing, golden skin touching mine. Surely this was the most perfect moment I’d ever experienced. 

For a second, I believed it would be different this time. 

In that instant, in that small fraction of a second where I believed I could be happy was when it happened. He was gone. He suddenly went limp in my arms, his breath came in sharply just once before life left him. For a moment, I tried to hold him upright but he was too heavy for me to hold, and he stumbled down awkwardly. 

I stared, wide-eyed in horror. There he was. On the ground, lying amongst the grass, dead. This was his final blow, his final parting stab. If he was going to give up on me one last time, it was going to be for good. 

The image began to melt away from my head. His figure flaked away and all that was left on the back of my eyelids was black. 

The trees swayed on the sides of the path.

I didn’t open my eyes. A single tear streamed down my cheek, and hung off my chin. After the first, they kept coming. I weeped. I keeled over, my face inches from the gravel. My insides burned a fierce flame. Their flame boiled my skin and bubbled up through my throat, piercing the silence. I screamed. I screamed and screamed, and when I stopped the silence of the night hung on me like an infinitely heavy weight. 

I hate him. I hate his glistening eyes and his soothing voice and his beautiful golden-brown hair, but the thing I hate most of all is that he’s gone. When he killed himself he left my body behind. He took my soul and my life and killed them. And he knew it. He knew. He knew that my life was his. He knew that he owned my soul because I gave it to him with no hesitation. That was my mistake. 

I made so many mistakes. 

I guess that’s all in the past now. If only I could hide from myself, that would make it easier to forget. But I’m stuck with myself. I’m stuck with this empty shell of a body, only lined with the ghosts of the past. 

I stood up, my eyes not yet open. I took a deep shuddering breath. The air was cold. 

Heavily, I lifted my eyelids. 

When I saw what was in front of me, I stopped breathing. 

I thought he was dead, but there he was, right in front of me on the street, smiling at me.