Ghosts

by Wendah Alvarez

I don't remember the last time we ate at 

a dining table in this house. 

Like ghosts, I hear the clicking of  

the keyboard from your laptop, 

the tinkling sounds of spoon and fork on a

plate, the filling of empty glass, 

the shutting of the bathroom door at 2 a.m. 

Sometimes the traces of your existence wake

me. I try to follow shadows and sounds to make

sure it is you. The dogs don't bark, it must be

you. 

Sci-fi channel always on, and 

voices of men talking about alien  

invasions fill the room 

as I eat on the kitchen counter 

wondering: 

How did I become almost forty,  

still eating on the kitchen counter?  

The other dining chair disappeared  

four summers ago, and yet you haven’t noticed. 

And of course I never want you to stop

drinking. It's the only time you ever  

sleep anymore. 

The only time I'm ever at peace. 

We have been in separate spaces, 

the only proof of our absolute

existence, the voices penetrating

through walls. 

I am the recurring I, 

an island of a being in your head. 

You are the words I cannot say. 

Because not everyone is like you,  

and many are like us–– 

like ghosts–– 

having faucet water conversations, 

shutting each other off.

We have been threading the same

unknown, desperately trying to capture a 

moment from a time-lapse photograph, 

only to find out we made the same mistake as Geryon. 

We left the aperture wide open. 

Dream of whimsical existence, an

autobiography only a Stesichorean can

understand.

---

Wendah Alvarez

3/11/2021

Wendah Alvarez believes in the power of story and that poetry is an Indigenous method of storytelling. She believes that poetry can solve what ails the soul.