to drink coffee with a ghost

by Amanda Lovelace

i watched a strange man punch a hole through our family.

i watched

you hold his hand & ...

you had me rehearse the tales that would protect you. - white lies.

your mother taught you to hate your body, - family heirloom.

so you taught me to hate my body. - family heirloom II.

it wasn’t long before i realized i could never be who you always wanted me to be. - i tried desperately to be her anyway.

what you told me after you saw the thin lines on my wrist. - “depression doesn’t exist.” i used to turn to you.

i didn’t feel like i could do that anymore,

help, i cut myself so deep i think i may have to go to the emergency room. help, i haven’t eaten in two days & i’m afraid i’ll die if i don’t & also if i do. help, he touched me & i still feel his fingers.

when you found out, you locked me up. buried the key someplace you forgot about.

no one ever bothered to tell you about the sad type of daughter & you did everything possible not to see her.

however, the weapon you did wield proved to be equally as dangerous. - your words.

your best friend. your fear. - they can be one in the same.

these aren’t magick. not by themselves. they’re magick because your hands are the ones holding them.

i walk the thin line between nostalgia & trauma, never fully knowing the difference. - maybe there is none.

if poetry showed me how to bleed without the demand of blood, then why do i keep picking open all my old wounds just to get some red on the page? - my ledger.

there is a kind of cold you’re overcome with when you see your first dead body & it has nothing to do with the temperature outside. you keep that cold with you for the rest of your life.

what do we do with all the things we need to say to someone we’ll never see again? - maybe that’s why i write.

one minute, you were here; the next, you had already gone. now i’m terrified to leave a room without saying goodbye to everyone inside of it first.

here i am, somehow managing to be more haunted house than girl.

i’m afraid i’ll be just like you.

i’m afraid i’ll be nothing like you.

i cannot fight my way through these fucking shadows on my own. - no light, no sun.