Your Voice In My Head

I've gotten so used to talking to you that sometimes I forget I am not.

I whisper words in empty rooms and always, always the air whispers back. It tricks me by doing it in your voice. It wears your puzzled expression. It laughs when you laugh.

I hear it say all the things you would say. Running through the back of my mind is the question - is it saying these things because you would say them, because you ARE saying them, or because it's what I want you to say?

Sometimes I ask you what you think of my dress, how I look, do you like my hair this way? You never saw my hair this way. I wear dresses now. You would love them.

Other times it is just the same phrase, muttered over and over, each time more urgently than the last. Why did you leave me?

Sometimes it changes.

Why did you me here?

Why did you leave me like this?

Why did you leave me with these people?

Why did you leave me behind?

They are not questions, really. Just statements.

They are the only things you never answer. I just feel you looking at me, so sadly. Like you pity me. As if you want to tell me an answer that you know I want to hear. An answer you can't give me. Because I know it anyway and there would be no point. There is never a point.

I wonder if I'm going mad. If I already was.

It is an indulgence. To think these things. To imagine you in my head. But is my own and so I allow myself this one small thing. When everything has been taken it is only the things left in your mind that can comfort you.

I feel that I must explain myself. Justify everything. Why I did this, why I did that. But you know. You already know. You could have predicted my moves down to the letter. We loved each other that way. I'd like you to get mad, just to see your expression change. But you won't. You never do.

Maybe it is not you, then, that I need to explain things to. Maybe it is me. To make sense of the absurdity of what has happened. It is like taking a house torn apart by a tornado and trying to put it back together with eleastic bands. I never get further than the door handle. It falls off in my hand.

I imagine you there, sitting, always sitting. Waiting. Watching. You seem bemused. I don't know why. They made your face so weird in that casket. They failed to miss the spot you always missed when you shaved. I hated them for that. It made you not real. And that's the face I see you in. Smirking. Not unfriendly. Just slightly confused, slightly amused.

Do you wonder too? What has happened?

I hope at least one of us can make sense of this. Although I'd rather it be me. Is that selfish? I want all the answers. You would never have needed them. If there is a way to make things make sense, I need to find it. You were much better at accepting things just as they are. I like this about you. Liked.

You make a very frustrating ghost. No hauntings or special tokens. You just hover, saying little. Poking up from time to time when I summon you. It's not very much, you know. Perhaps you could do better? Probably not. You aren't really real.

What more can I say? I miss you. I love you. You forgot some things. Make sure you stop by to pick them up.