the beekeeper.

the phantom of the opera likes to eat mangoes.

i keep having to remind myself that at one point you were real,
that you were more than a mirage,
a diaphanous apparition that fluttered in and out of sight whenever it seemed fit.
i have to murmur to myself between the seams of my ludington hoodie you wanted so badly:
"boy, she was truthful.
she was alive and trying to breathe.
remember how you sucked the air from her lungs and devoured it
like the truffles you'd take from her mouth."
you were once in a tangible form,
and god, did i touch you
not nearly enough.

i frequently see faux images crafted by the possessed carpenters in my head,
and oftentimes i believe you were just another one of them.
fake, terrifying, moving;
another tall, soft-skinned creature crawling on my bed and whispering in my ear,
attempting at its hardest to make itself important to me.

but on nights like tonight
where i am lodged in between thin quilts and cold mattresses,
suffering at the thought of your voice,
aching with desire for your warmth,
i become brutally aware of your very real existence again.
i grow attentive to the memory of your eyes,
your laugh-so unconventional, so unique,
how you would tell me you loved me,
and i would tell you i loved you.

if you are a spirit,
some phantom,
some spectre,
some ghastly formation that is haunting me as we speak,
eavesdropping on my thoughts,
heed this bill of resolution i scrawl in darkness.

i would have kissed you had i known.
i would have let you sleep on the right side of the bed.
i would have made you dinner more often.
i would have held you more.
i would support your love for beautiful vocalists and refrain from jealousy,
and i would love your friends like my siblings.
and we could watch x-files,
and listen to vampire weekend,
and laugh about fruit we don't actually eat,
and kiss under the sheets,
and your mother wouldn't know,
and my father wouldn't care,
and we could continue loving one another like we were bound to do.

i thought we were bound by god to love one another.

ghost,
vacuum the air from my lungs like i did to you so long ago.
i don't want to live knowing you're real.