...as a lost ghost
by Travis MacMillan
 

The sun sets and dies in your eyes.
Yet I will never mourn its loss
nor shall I ever curse the darkness.
And while Summer desecrates the hallowed remains of my childhood once more,
it is the coldness of your embrace that I still pine for.

Somewhere… between the fields of bitter hatred and reluctant indifference,
I must bury my love for you.
I thought it would pass peacefully long ago.
Yet it lingers on still as a lost ghost,
trapped in a world in which it no longer belongs nor understands-
useless and tired…
tired and useless.

Amongst the crashing waves of the endless ocean sky,
my soul escapes through the flute I should have burned long ago,
swimming in the dirges chanted softly by the stars.
Echoes of the hopeful requiem dance through the cracks of the crumbling smile my heart bravely wears.
A final cry escapes as the ghost is ripped from its former frame.
Piercing the dark, a drunken sun stumbles upward once more.

No one mourns; no one cheers; and no one cares.

As the flames of the funeral pyre
and clouds of sweet incense
carry its heavy soul from this life to the next,
my curses burn against the unrequited love…
but never its object.