Hello.

This is my ghost in the guise of a poem.

Read it without grief in your heart;
the windows thrown wide open, sunlight

streaming in. Read it as children run around
your front yard like tomorrow doesn't exist.

How we learn so much from innocence.
Her tiny hand, cradled in yours. Suddenly

she breaks free from you, running through
the thick afternoon crowd. You catch up.

She's looking through the glass of a sweet
shop and she points at a strawberry-filled

confection. Her eyes bore into yours and
you are filled with forgiveness, overflowing.

It's like life saying: Here, take this pain.
Someday it will dissolve like cotton candy

in your mouth. Like: Open wide, let the
world know that your tongue is pink

from eating too much sugar and sunsets
in the park while your dog barks at a tree.

Pain is sweet when you've tasted it enough
times, like warm blood from a kiss on a

winter night. Like poetry made of words that
dissolves at the pit of your stomach, I hope

it means something to you enough to bruise
your pulsing soul. So that one day when

someone loves you too hard, you'll remember
the pain that was sweeter than nectar and

you'll remember me. You'll remember me.

PROLOGUE: The Beginning Before Birth

I walk through the trees. I don't mind the sun
on my face anymore. Is this what it feels like

to be alive? Perhaps the afterlife is sweeter
than life. I think: If so, let's catch the train sooner.

We clutch at our luggage like innocent creatures
to their years. The other passengers are smoking

their morning cigar. Some are reading today's
paper. A lady peels an orange, hands a segment

to her child in a red cap. One day, that child will
grow up. He will remember today, his mother

handing him a piece of fruit and he'll try so hard
to remember what kind of fruit it was but his

memory will fail him. He thinks: nothing has ever
tasted as sweet. He'll remember today--everything

in red. The train is crowded. No one can see my
hand in yours; happiness bubbling in the pit

of my stomach, I could almost throw it all up.

CHAPTER I: The Day after the Goodbye

I want you to read this and think, what does this
mean? And then years later, you will remember

this poem. But not in its entirety. Just bits and
pieces. You will try to recreate it in your head.

You will create your own versions of this poem.
You will try to recreate the pain I made you feel.

And you will think: thank god, thank god. Thank
god I let the years go by. And then, you will try

to create your own meaning from the pain.
This is the last poem I will ever write.