Being inside your ghost is a cold, lone huddle comprised of my own arms. If you were here, this is one of the things I would tell you.
The first day I did not look for you. Past experience dictated you’d crawl out from somewhere, a bit grizzled and worse for wear, broken only with a stench of unused things. I’d wash you off with lilac soap and a loofah and we’d continue as we’d done in the past; no apologies, only sharing the understanding one who gets dirty and one who does the washing have.
I remember your skin now. This is one thing I would tell you if you were here.
***
On the second day, I was at the lab until nine or so. Now that you are gone there is no need for punctuality, but it still felt wrong. The house was dark and hollow even when I filled it with my toss of keys, coat and the clunk of my carelessly kicked shoes. I collapsed upon arrival. If there was a scurrying or a soft tread of kneecaps like trembling, I was unaware. Sleep can overcome me, heavy as death. You know this. You have been nestled beside me, or spaced similar, for so long.
When I began to stop listening, you would tell me how sometimes my breaths would disappear in the night and how you wanted a jeweler’s hammer, a tumid forest mushroom or something else delicate but strong so that you could tap my breaths back into me, gently, without a chance of waking.
When you began to stop listening, I would ask you about the attendance of my breaths and your response would be a shrug and a careless turn away. You’d hide your hands but from where I stood I could see them stroking your sledgehammer, your mallet.
The next morning I woke up late fully clothed sans shoes, remembered your absence, felt fresh sadness and then worry. Worry. I knew I would have to explain it to you again, although futile. Your brain chooses to be a child’s whenever it can. I tell myself it is your brain and not you. Defects don’t mean anything.
After my four minute shower I only had time to check the laundry basket and the mailbox before speeding to the lab.
You weren’t in either.
***
I looked for you in handfuls yesterday; 17 minutes after returning from the gym, 12 minutes after my shower, 24 minutes after lunch, 37 minutes after I had come back from returning the last round of gifts I purchased for you — gifts I gave knowing they wouldn’t be kept.
“One must try,” I told you after my arms were as empty as your expression.
“Trying does nothing,” you replied confidently, staring at the empty boxes, bags, and tissue scattered, meaningless. “Trying got me nowhere.”
I curled my fists into regret and thought about clocks running backwards. You left the broken ribbons on the rug, stepping on them as you walked to the door. A pink one caught on your heel.
The pink ribbon looked like it needed you, so I kept its voyage to myself. This is one of the things I would tell you if you were here.
I ate leftovers with a wine that made up for them and looked for you one last time before masturbating and falling into sleep.
You were not in the wine cellar.
You were not in the tissue box.
***
One night while crying in front of the television there was a moment where I thought I heard faraway laughter — yours. The over-enthusiastic laughter you would make when you were dressed for formal occasions, soaked with champagne and men’s attention. You would make your laughter so very loud because that was when I stopped listening. You were trying to make me hear you, see you.
Your trying; I see it now. This is another thing I’d tell you if you were here.
***
In the beginning you used to hide under things: medium — size baskets, lawn furniture, musty moving blankets, our old washing machine that still sits in the basement, broken — things that rarely moved. Places that could be burrowed. I would check every available underneath looking for the whites of your eyes, hoping you’d let me see them, a hint in the game I had no choice but to play.
That one time you hid in our recycling bin it took me an entire Memorial Day weekend to find you. I had to administer fluids. Your skin looked like tree bark. I re-explained the concept of “worry” and you nodded like you understood. I knew from how you looked away too quickly that you did not. Now, I think I know you just didn’t care.
Now, I am not sure where to look. I have moved every stationary item that exists both inside and outside of our house. I moved the forgotten ones twice. I am fearful you have changed the game again. I am fearful I will not find you.
I know you have told me it’s no longer a game, but I do not wish to call it what it is. Not yet. This is another thing I would tell you if you were here.
***
I didn’t look for you this morning. I called your name in a volume and manner with the urgency of a request to pass the salt. I was shaving. It would have been dangerous to yell. I did not want to see my blood in our sink. I was worried that you would continue not to answer.
I left for work foolishly confident that upon my return you’d be back — on the tile, on the rug, or on the parquet, thin and ready. I wished for it. Weary. Hopeful.
If I can just continue looking for you, even if it’s forever, it will be something. I will not need to admit defeat. I will not need to put up a headstone for what we were. I will feed the bloodhounds; I will give the weary searchers fresh batteries for their flashlights and cold drinks when the sun beats them blind. I can do this if you do not end the game.
If you were here, these are some of the things I would tell you.
Because I Am Not a Monster
Don’t worry. I will never find you. Do not worry. You are safe. Oh, lucky you. You should be glad I don’t have a knife collection. You should be glad I do not keep poisons in pretty jars saving the prettiest for you. You should be glad I cannot tie knots or have access to a gun safe. You should be thankful I am only half-obsessed, spread just thin enough to know which way is up, good from bad, wrong from right, only baby step fucked in the head. You should be glad there isn’t a part of my brain that clicks, breaks, and changes Wolfman-style into something that can break skin razor sharp into every piece of every part of you. Something that needs to feed on the fear screaming in your pupils of your green fucking eyes, bites your sweet throat warmest of veins screaming for my warmest of mouths, stubble a delicious obstacle to the smoothness of my tongue. You will never need a single silver bullet with me. You will not need a stake made of wood. You will not need holy water or a Jesus cross or torches or pitchforks or any other sort of protective weapon made for monsters such as me. I am the most timid of monsters. They have removed me from my position within their ranks citing words like fail, coward, reject, weakling, useless, stupid, worthless, dumbass. I tried to hang within their monster ranks, I did. I do. I try every day. It’s a reenlisting of a reenlisting of a reenlisting. Every day I think, I am almost there and every day they kick me out. They make me go back to my life. They know what I know and that is, I have too much to hold on to so I cannot truly be a monster.
This, I sometimes question. Especially on the days my walls get so thin.