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Conversations with a Ghost

Drunk in an airport bar...

By Jai StormPublished 7 years ago 2 min read
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It always seems like my best ideas come to be mid-drink in an airport bar where I wait for my three hour layover to pass.

It's the same old cantina, the same old seat, near the same old gate at Dallas Love Airfield.

There are two baseball games on in front of me. My favorite sport, what more could I want?

Then memories of you slip into my mind, so innocently yet so ferociously. It's almost been a year and yet here you sit in front of me. An invisible force...a phantom memory.

And as hard as we might try, life cannot be filled with scripted moments. There are no easy conversations, no easy breakups, no easy goodbyes.

"What do you want from me?" I ask staring past you at the screen.

I hear your voice so clearly answer, "I miss you...and I just wanted you to know you're beautiful."

I laugh. Your jokes still funny in my mind. "That's not really why you're here," I say turning and looking you square in the eye.

You smile, and it makes me sick inside. Ghosts don't smile. Ghosts haunt people. Ghosts are a sad, lost memory.

"You're not real," I say looking back to the screens.

“You miss me…admit it,” you say, so confident in your words like you’ve done nothing wrong. I can see you smile out of my peripheral vision and it makes me want to puke. Why are you still doing this to me? Why do you still haunt my memories?

“No, I absolutely do not,” I state, reaching for my beer and brushing your hand. Electrical shocks run through me, and I realize the ghost in front of me may be more real than I admit.

Have I lost my mind? Why are you still so real in my memory? Why do I let it hurt like it does? The solemn memory of saying goodbye without saying a word and yet here you are, a memory sitting across from me.

“We used to have so much fun. All the times we went to dinner or to concerts. You were my favorite hello and my hardest goodbye,” you say turning and looking at the wall with a sad look on your face.

“I really wish I could say the same…” I begin. “And you know what kills me the most about all of this?” I ask your ghostly figure. “What kills me is that I was more me when I was with you than I have ever been,” I stop and look right at you.

“But how could you possibly know that when you didn’t even give an ounce of your time to chase me down. Why didn’t you chase me? Why didn’t you run after me? If I meant so much to you why did you let me go so easily? Why was it so easy for you?”

Tears well in my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. I refuse to give you, or rather the memory of you, the satisfaction.

You smile and reach to touch me. But just like real life when we were together, your hand goes right through me, and you vanish into thin air…

Maybe next time, when we meet again, I’ll be less drunk and you won’t show up.

…I never stopped loving you. I just stopped believing you would change.

breakupsfact or fiction
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About the Creator

Jai Storm

An avid writer who utilizes real life experiences and places them delicately onto paper for others to live vicariously through.

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