Coming Home

We sat at a round table, eating dinner when he came in. I noticed him, but you paid no attention. For a second, I thought perhaps he was still alive.

There was no plate set out for him.

You sat down across the table and I sat, looking at you, then back at him. He sat at my right side. His hands were folded and he watched me eat.

You asked: "what do you keep looking at?" and made useless conversation.

I lowered my eyes and tried to ignore the ghost. My eyes burned with frustration and the food tasted like rubber. The conversation built, just like a pile of rubbish, upon my heavy soul until it drowned in the blood surrounding my heart.

"Do you not SEE him?" I interrupted you. You looked at the dead man and he looked back at you. You sighed.

"I do," you said. I threw my arms around his neck and held him. He felt so alive. "I missed you." And his voice, alive:

"I missed you, too."

The three of us sat at the couch, talking the night away. In the morning, he would be gone.

Then the alarm clock rang and the ghost slipped from my arms. I reset my alarm and pushed my mind back asleep, but a new dream came

and the ghost had burned himself into my mind.