His voice is never your voice,  and now that I know he is just a ghost of you, there will always be a moment just before he says hello when I will want to hear your voice. And there will always be a moment just after he says hello when I'll realize all over again, every time,  that it's not you.  And you will die all over again.

Dear ghost boy,  please,  stop calling me.

Dear ghost go away please.  But want to stay.

One day,  the ghost came back. In the shape of a boy with an easy smile and a kind heart. One day the ghost boy made me feel like home. Like family.

These things are too much.

Old me would run away at this point and choose safety instead. Destruction instead.

What if I want to keep the ghost boy around because I want to punish him for leaving. To make him feel the way I did. Not say out loud the deadline ever looming above our heads. Above MY head.  There is no our and never can be.

She said,  take the week and write about the why of a thing.  About why it's so hard for you to accept love. She doesn't know,  there is no love here.

He said,  my dear,  don't you see,  this door was closed and he opened it for you. And I cried and the song came on the radio and I had nothing to say.

Don't you know,  dear boy,  heartbreaker,  my heart. Every day I wish I was coming home to you,  not your ghost.

Today I keep deleting the first line over and over again. I've sat in front of this laptop for an hour now with nothing to show for myself other than things don't change, they can't. Here are some deleted first lines:

There was a boy once-- there is always a boy isn't there? in that annoying way they have of being.

I was going to tell you about my name, how you gave it to me. It was from a joke but when you said it, I was crying and you were trying not to touch me, not to comfort, and so you whispered it with such tenderness that it became my home. Once, you were the boy.

I keep telling myself I am not broken, say it over and over again until I can believe it. The truth is maybe I want to be, because broken things can be fixed. In china they fix them with gold so a thing can only be beautiful after it is broken.

There was a girl, and she was yelling at a boy, telling him to walk away. He didn't. But that doesn't happen in real life. In real life, If I push you away enough times, you will actually leave. We keep pushing each other away, don't we? I don't know how to let you love me. I have only let you in this far because you promised me you wouldn't love me. It's so much safer here. lonelier too. We keep playing with fire. I don't know if I want to get burned.

There was a girl once. I still love hearing the sound of her voice. I think sometimes about the after. All the places I have left MY voice for others to take comfort in. There are so few, and I have so much left to say.

After publishing the first blog post

Did you think, I wonder, that I would air out all the dirty laundry? That I would open a door that you forced me to shut. Did you think, all those bruises and scars didn't work. To shut me up. To keep me quiet. To control me.

Be glad. Feel proud. They did. You won. You always win. There is no cat to let out of the bag here, and noises in the dark still scare me into submission. I have made my box larger. I can occupy more space now. My desk is out in the open and there are quotes written in permanent marker on my furniture. But rest easy knowing you will always own me. My body still cringes when someone enters my space. The nightmares still come at night sometimes. The quiet still screams in my head so loud that I can barely hear the world outside.

Was this what you wanted? Can you breathe a sigh of relief now? It's ok, don't worry, your secret is safe with me. I will drown in it soon enough and you'll never have to worry again.

I thought it was a thing that I could use to find a way to reach for something more for myself.  It worked before you see.  But this world too has lost its luster.  Nothing is shiny anymore,  and I am left to find myself, by myself.  I do not know how to ask, what do you want from me? Without it sounding like I'm saying,  i know you are here to hurt me and I'm just waiting for this too to implode.