— Caitlyn Siehl, “Haunting”

“The fact that we are all immortal.
That is my answer.
The fact that we are born knowing how to haunt.

When they ask me about the miracle
of being human, this is what I will say.
Your chest was the final frontier,
the place I explored with a vengeance
until I found a space to settle down in and call my own.

The fact that we never leave the places
we have been, but instead
tuck them behind our teeth
until we want to remember again.
You are every place.
You are not a place at all.

The fact that I turned myself transparent just to show you where it hurt
and how you howled when you saw the gracelessness of everything inside of me.

I started disappearing on a Sunday.
I pulled a white sheet over my head
and hung over you like a responsibility.
When you asked me what I was doing,
I told you that I was just practising.

Now, darling. Now, we have broken like bone.
I am the quiet in the hallway and the drawer
in your room where I left a pair of my socks.
I am the phone call at 4 a.m that
you’ve learned to ignore.
I am a phantom imprint in the bed
beside you and the miracle of it all is that I could have been anyone’s ghost,
but I wanted to be yours.
I had to be yours.”