the insomniac talks to herself in the dark

an artificial carcass for the boy who never was

I don’t sleep, and neither did he, so his ghost keeps 
dreadful company. His voice is a cicada buzzing, 
audible if you keep your eyes shut, and his pearly
white image is crouched in the corner of my room. 
Did you ever love me? he asks. Even a little? 
I turn over in bed, blank gaze affixed to the dark
brown slats, and reply: You don’t know me well
enough to ask. We’re pedantic teenagers on a smoke 
break from seeming important, exchanging worn-out memories
in the dew-soft dark. Said ghost comes to perch on the end
of my bed, disrupting the pile of cardigans. I know you 
could recite the first page of Harry Potter by heart, he 
says. I know you closed your eyes when you stepped 
onto the subway and you talked about love like it was 
a real thing, like it was in the room with us, a neutral
third party. I prop myself up on an elbow, tuck my knotted 
hair over my shoulder, and regard him with the critical gaze
I used to reserve for complicated physics problems. That’s how 
I know you’re not real, I say, dispassionate, eyebrow raised. 
You never knew any of that. The starlight is burning a thick
trail of light across my carpet, flower stems curling like the 
steps of a rib cage, an artificial carcass for the boy who 
never was. You wished I did, he says, you wished I was 
different with I love you in your mouth. He stands and walks
across the room, his policy of not engaging unravelling, 
agitated enough to clutch the back of his neck. Liar, he adds,
as if I don’t already know that. As if I don’t know that I was 
the one who burned the house down. As if I don’t know that
I had never moved into the house to begin with, only pretended
to covet it so I could get past the front door. As if, I say. You 
could’ve known what I was. If you were listening. I look after him, 
the amateur haunter, even as he moves to the door. You disassembled 
me like a doll, he says, even as he begins to fade, ever eager to get in
just one more shot. You sold off my memory for spare parts. I grin as 
he dissolves, exhaling smoke. At least I get the ghost.