Two Voices, One Ghost

He once said,

"I get to talk to you longer,"

as if minutes were treasures,

as if silence stole gold

from a chest he longed to keep full.

Now the hours stretch empty,

and his voice is a shadow

I chase in vain.

How could the warmth of his words

turn so cold?

Was it the same mouth

that whispered soft truths,

that etched laughter into

the fragile surface of my heart?

How could it now lock itself

in silence,

a vault I cannot breach?

The dichotomy splinters my mind:

was he ever real?

Was he the one who held me

in the cradle of his sentences,

or the one who disappeared

like smoke,

leaving me coughing

on unspoken goodbyes?

It can't be the same person,

can it?

The one who celebrated

each stolen moment

now steals them away.

I speak to the echoes

of who I thought he was,

trying to reconcile

the stranger he’s become.

But the chasm yawns wide,

and I am left

on the precipice,

wondering—

was he ever truly here at all?

~RMC