Tell me about the time where it was the three of us: you, me, and the ghost girl
in the back row of a bus,
surrounded by faceless figures, the things I can’t tell you,
winding roads, a fleshy lump of former animal crouched around the next bend.
We were going home for Christmas, and when you go home for Christmas, you cannot be sad,
even when the bus slows around the curve, and you realize the animal was a man.
There’s no way to write this story down without tearing the page in two,
and honestly, I’m surprised I can say it without losing my mind.
I’m running down the front walk just to see your retreating back
What if this is the last I see of you?
I know you’re just going to work, and you’ll be home soon but please, tell me about the time
I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Take me back in slow motion,
our arms freestyle swimming through the air, bodies possessed by your need to say
you were right all along. I’ll put my guilt down in permanent marker, tattoo it on my face, just please,
tell me about the time when you were the ghost, the girl, the man, the bus bursting into flames,
burning away my corporal being like some kind of personal north star.
Tell me how there were no survivors. Tell me how you made sure there were no survivors.
I know you’re just going to work but please, tell me what you did with the ghost, the ashes.
Do you keep them in a box under your bed? Or did you leave them obscenely splayed on the road?
Even though you burnt it all, we are still left with the sadness and even if you one day rid yourself of that,
we are still left with the road, the trees, December the 25th, and all the things I can’t tell you.
Sarah Chin is a poetry, humor, and fiction writer with a day job in politics. Her work has been featured in HAD, Epiphany, Anodyne Magazine, The Belladonna, and more. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
