Haunt (Me)

The worst person I’ve ever seen is the one that lives beneath the skin of the girl I see in my dreams. She exists as a ghost might, she exists as your worst nightmare might; in fleeting appearances.

Seen in reflections only by those who believe her to be there in the first place. You may speak of her on nights easy to come by. On nights you would spend around campfires, bright as the sun viewed through a telescope, illuminating golden fear-stricken faces of foolish children that knew no better. 

And it would not be wrong for you to assume she isn't popular among discussions; even brave ghost stories told by foolish children. 

The first time I see her we are young, old enough to whine about being referred to as children, young enough to still look up to teenagers. She shares a face that is not unlike mine. Although, I think, she looks more childish than myself. 

I spot her in the bathroom mirror, unlike a ghost she isn’t standing behind me or off to the side waiting to be noticed. By the looks of her not once in her life has she stood unnoticed. It would be more accurate to say she demanded to be noticed. No, she is standing in front of me. Eye to eye, head to head, toe to toe. 

I couldn’t miss her face if I tried to. She didn’t have a face that was easy to miss. Her own father would struggle to miss a face like that.

Yet, everything else about her was quite forgettable, so, I’ve forgotten. The rest of her easily slipping my mind, like damp mist escaping through the gaps of iron bars.

I didn’t miss her.

There was a resemblance between us, some might even say we were mirror images of each other, but not me, not then. There was something distinctly wrong about her face, something I couldn’t identify. It was simply just wrong in every possible way a face could be wrong. 

It was as if you were walking in a crowd only to look, really look, at the faces around you and find you were walking among plastic mannequins. You just never noticed until you stopped moving forward through the masses.

I found her face to be unnerving in all the ways it could’ve been human, but I would be wrong to describe it as such: human.   

Prior to seeing her face, I was inaccurate in the assumption that nightmares could only show themselves in dark, damp, places. Places with hard edges and sharp corners. Places you slipped into unknowingly and didn’t come back from- nightmare places. 

But it was impossibly, glaringly bright, here in front of this mirror. The edges were all soft and doughy- dream-like. She stood in front of me, eyes wide, unapologetically staring. Washed out, muted face turning a color of red I didn’t think faces could get even with the most vicious of sun burns. You could paint your face red and it wouldn’t rival the color of hers. You could spill all the blood in your body and your flesh wouldn't be the only thing that pales in comparison.

Her face is the color of rage and hunger, of every desire and craving you wanted and were denied. It is the color of every bad day that leaves the bitter taste of anger and humiliation on your tongue. She is the very embodiment of hatred and it is staining her face, marring and distorting it beyond even her own mother’s recognition. It is the kind of face you could see once as a young child in a crowded arena and remember for the rest of your life. 

It is the face you see behind closed eyes, shrouded in the murkiness of every nightmare you wish you could forget. It is the face you think is behind you every time you ascend darkened stairs.

And I think, her face is not unlike mine, even, more similar to mine than I would like.

I cannot look at her any longer, afraid that angry red burn will spread to my own face, afraid my own mother won't recognize me behind all the distortion. Afraid my own father won’t miss me.

No one misses a nightmare. 

I turn my head, force my eyes open, and for the first time of many, I welcome the sharp darkness that follows upon waking. 

Many years go by before I see her face again and I can only wish it had been decades, but, even then, it’d be far too soon. Only a fool would wish to see her ever again.

She has grown older with me and the resemblance we share is now glaringly obvious. I know that it is her instantly, standing in front of me in my bedroom mirror. Once again, demanding to be seen. Eye to eye, head to head, toe to toe.

I don't miss her, no matter how much I want to. 

A black void sits where her facial features once were. It is the color of ripe blackberries, as you crush them between your teeth. It is the color of the dark side of the moon when you wish for illumination.

It is the color of shadows and dim lighting- consuming and alluring; it is the color of every monster that waits for you behind closed doors, every mistaken step, every known, wasted, opportunity.

And, more than a color, it is an object. The personification even. Of every regretted broken promise and forgotten dream you never got a chance to realize you had. It is, in every meaning and every definition of the word, a nightmare. A depravity. 

She is a physical setting without any sound. There’s a stillness to it, there’s an absence to it. It is an absence you become very aware of in the same way a deer would suddenly become very aware of bright headlights and still be unable to do anything to change the outcome. Still unable to change this random fate. Still. 

You don’t choose to have a nightmare, you don't choose the epitome of the dark place you slip into and don’t come back out of.

And I think, her face is not unlike mine, even, more similar to mine than I would like. 

I cannot look at her any longer. I cannot miss her any longer.

And I wake. Once more forcing my eyes open to the pitch black void that is my room at midnight. Hoping I will know better now, than to peer into my reflections while I sleep, mistakenly believing my own self won’t be there one night. I will find only an impersonation staring back, an incarnation of every nightmare I’m lucky to have never had and not come back from. Every crack in run down sidewalks I’ve not yet slipped under, every monster waiting in closets, left hungry from unopened doors in vacant rooms and every ghost that hasn’t yet died to haunt me.