Childhood haunts

And any I love yous offered 

Have become as empty as his apologies

As the doorway 

The space in the bed beside me

The lines in my notebook 

As I search for an inkling 

Of his sincerity

but find only myself lingering.

In my mind I practice slamming doors closed,

Instead of throwing open bed sheets

Shroud every mirror.

Reaching for my anger beneath the floorboards of a home that has a resemblance in both our wavering childhoods,

But only finding his.

It’s cold in my hands — Like the tin cans we’ve tied to another, stretching across all this time.

I cannot tell if the whispers in the dark are between the boy who used ride his bike to school afraid it would one day vanish —

And the girl who pretended she had a magic wand to make the nightmares disappear.

Or if it’s the poltergeists,

Drug in with the antiques of our adolescence.