A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope

by K.M. Moronova

For the weary darlings out in the world who seek hope.

“Not this time, baby. Go on ahead without me. I’ll see you two later.”

I believe in, well, love. In its purest form—in the most intimate and selfless light it’s meant to be in. And dying young, protecting the two people I cherish more than my aching soul can bear, is an act of love I would do over for eternity if I had to.

Ghosts are sadness and regret. Our hearts bleed as much as the living.

Why is my chest filled with so much torment and grief? Why am I still so fucking depressed?

My light died a long time ago—flickering with the many exhales of disapproval until finally, with one big breath, it was blown completely out. Like a withering candle left out in the cold, surely to hush and diminish as expected.

Heartless assholes aren’t born, you know. They’re trained into it. Their souls have been drained early and thoroughly by the wicked people before them. Hurt people tend to hurt people.

This lovely phantom is the very image of tragedy. She is a ballad of mournful movements, bones, and tattered lace—a symphony unlike any I’ve endured.

The way the wind caresses him as he reaches out for me is like a ballad. One that I’ve danced to a million times over but never quite found the right footing to. His light brown hair is chaos and his eyes are a storm of greens, blues, and dashes of yellow. A parchment of sorrowful words written and scrawled—he reminds me of such a somber, nostalgic song—one of sadness and death. One never known. He is a ballad of phantoms… and, perhaps, one of hope.

“Of course, it hurts… I think it always will. But most things that wound your heart like this are worth it. It only hurts because of how precious we hold them. I’m never alone, not really, because I know they will carry the weight of me with them forever.”

Lanston, You’ve inspired me, so I'm telling you a story—my story. In it, you will read many sad things, but my hope is that you will perhaps find answers to the questions that flicker through your eyes when you look at me. I knew long ago that I was unwanted. It wasn’t one slight glare but many. Should a five-year-old know the sting of a belt? I knew it well. You learn quickly how to hide, how to plead, and, most of all, how to shut out the world. It wouldn’t be fair to say I’m a nice person because I’m not, not really. I know I’m cold and distant. It’s the fail-safe that keeps my mind taped together in its fragile state. Remember when I told you I was murdered? It’s not pretty—the thorns are sharp, and they will pierce you. This is the beginning of the end—the story of how I died. Will you hear it?

Lanston, Hey you, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, the beginning of the end. The sick game death likes to play before we ripen. Where do I start my story? I guess where it begins… when I was five, my cousin died by suicide. I didn’t understand the gravity of that yet, but my family said horrible things about her after her funeral. They said she was selfish and was going to hell for “committing the ultimate sin.” That she would burn for what she did. Even at a young age, I thought to myself how unfair it was of them to say. She was a kind person, that is all I remembered of her, but I knew that she wasn’t bad. She was the most generous and caring human I’d known. But I also remembered the things they said about her. I kept it locked away in a compartment in my brain for the day my brain started to turn on me too. Patrick was the first boy I fell in love with. He wasn’t very nice, but we dated for a few years until I turned seventeen. That’s when I learned how much a person could wound you without a weapon. He cheated on me with some tall blonde and that was the end of it. A betrayal that I’d carry with me for the rest of my life. “You aren’t a good person. You know that. It was bound to happen,” my stepmother told me. Little did I know that someone else had their eye on me, on my suffering, like a reaper drawn to rot, waiting patiently for me to ripen. Someone watched me until I fell into ruin. My murderer was always close. Always near. I wish I’d known.

Lanston, Hey, you. This is the last letter I’ll give you. Well, maybe not the last, but you’ve shown me that we can talk about the things that happened to us. And I want to share those things with you as easily as you do with me. I want to watch you continue to draw, letting the beauty of your mind infect the pages. But I’ll leave you with this until then. The last part of my tragic story. My depression grew after high school. The people in my life weren’t kind of my illness. They urged it on even. Do you want to know how I died? I’ll tell you. It was me. My murderer was my illness; it took me young, naive. I jumped from the bridge and fell to the depths of the world. Where the darkness finally came for me. I hope you don’t hate me… I know what I did was wrong, but what if I told you I fought it really fucking hard and for a long time? What if I told you that I searched for the light but couldn’t find it? Would I still be painted as a bad person? The one who only wanted attention? I’ll tell you another secret. I didn’t want attention. I just wanted to be gone. I wanted to be away from all the cruel things that made me hate myself. The words that made me hate myself. The bridge we met on, the bench I stood on and pulled roses from, was the memorial bench the local church placed for me. They didn’t put my name on the plaque. My family didn’t want their last name muddied with my sin, so roses it was. Ophelia roses. I’m stuck on earth because I was taught people who die by sui...