ghost in the backseat
a poem
“it was like watching you on a first date,” he said.
“sitting in the back and listening to you make small talk
as if it were the easiest thing in the world for you.
chatting about kids and jobs, finding
the common places
going with the flow.”
“when I met you,” he said, “you
weren’t just closed off.
you were an unopened flower surrounded by thorns.
your walls were topped with barbed wire.”
“it was like watching someone
I almost didn’t know.”
“I still see you that way, sometimes, for better or worse,
I remember that unavailable person.
so seeing you be easy with a literal stranger
takes me off guard.
makes me feel… not like a fly on the wall, but like an
unwilling voyeur.”
“no one else sees you that way,” he said.
“as a mystery, a challenge.
they see someone who can relate to them.
they don’t see a tight, prickly flower,
they perceive an open bloom
nodding its head in the sun
as they talk.”
