Alex Howe, "Renovation"

Sometimes I call myself a haunting

So I don’t have to use your name

Sometimes I see the ghost of you with fondness,

And sometimes with hate, but always with panic

You’re fainter now, they say it can happen to spirits

As they’re forgotten

they fade

And if I could exorcise this house made of bones and

Sinew and tears, I would but

Sometimes the rot can’t be cut out

just talked out and I’m talked out so

I’ve been rebuilding each room as another collapses

I’ve been drenching curtains in a scent I chose

so it only smells like I’ve been here

Not just painting over paper but ripping it down

shredding that thin skin over walls

One day there’ll be no trace you were ever here.

At least that’s what I tell myself on the days when

I am more scaffold than structure

With your muddy footprints trekked across my limbs

That can’t be scrubbed away

That seem to bubble to the surface in low lighting,

or low moods, or when I feel too purely loved

for it to be real

Which is to say, when I feel loved.

I have to resist the urge to tear it all down, sometimes,

It still rears its head,

Often your head is the one it rears,

which just sends me running.

But I’m not just running anymore,

I’ve been building for a while now.