See me,

I begged,

hoping you would look up and meet my eyes.

But even if you looked,

you would not see.

Even if you saw,

it would not be me.

For your gaze passes right through,

piercing my heart and shattering it.

Hear me,

as I whisper comfort to your ears.

Where even when no one hears your voiceless cries,

I will be there,

listening,

always.

Feel me,

and my presence,

I always was,

and always will be there for you.

Even when everyone has let you down,

even when they did not see you for who you were,

I will be there.

Catch me,

you ask.

For you have fallen,

but not beyond return.

I promise,

this time I will be there for you,

so catch this heart I give to you.

I asked you to see,

but you could not.

So, I will ask you once more,

do you see how I love you so?

See with your heart,

and not your eyes.

See me,

for I see you too

She lies curled upon the bed, arms and knees wrapped around a pillow, weeping silently, so none will know the ache that remains, the pain that squeezes her heart so tightly she wonders how it does not burst...why doesn’t it burst? It has been sixteen months since the heart of her beloved ceased to beat. Sixteen months since she has noticed the beauty of a sunrise, a child’s laugh, a bird’s song. Those who love her still have grown impatient with her grief. It is time, they say. You must move on, they say. He would want you to be happy. He wouldn’t want you to suffer so.Thus, she is learning to hide her tears and cry in the silence of the long, lonely nights.

This night, as she lay with tears glistening on her cheeks, a tiny sliver of moonlight shone upon her shoulder where could be seen a hand not her own, gently caressing. Behind her, lay the shimmering form of her beloved, holding her close in arms she could not feel near the body whose touch her skin had yet to forget.

“Oh my darling,” he whispered, “would that I could dry your tears and bring a smile to those lips whose kiss filled my heart with joy, to those eyes whose glance made me stand taller, because of the love that shone in them for me.

“Would that I could tell you once more how my world was made complete the first time you took my hand. How I felt myself become whole, something more, though I had not known until the very moment our eyes met that I had been half a man till then. 

“Would that you could feel my arms embrace you, my skin warm against yours, loving you. Always loving you. 

“Know this, my love: I am the breeze that caresses your cheek when the air is still. The faint breath on your neck as you stand by the window, staring up at the moon. The warmth upon your lips when you close your eyes, remembering. I will be with you. Always.”

Slowly, as moonlight turned to the creeping light of dawn, he faded and she slept, on her lips, the gentlest of curves. Almost a smile.

A young girl drifts among the rotting trees

Although the ground is covered

In powdery silver snow,

She's no longer bothered by the cold

She looks on, gazing intently

Into the barren distance,

Where her lost love stands

He shovels mound after mound

Of snow, chucking it behind him

His face is lined with droplets of sweat,

His cheeks cherry red from winter's kiss

The girl wishes she could be there

She could hold him, embrace him,

Fix a mug of steaming coffee for him

She could do anything, something,

To warm his frigid body

Even more than that,

The girl wants to tell him

Of all the emotions entangling

In her still heart

She may no longer be alive,

But her feelings for him are

Every day, she approaches him,

Wandering just a bit closer

And every day, she opens her mouth,

Ready to speak,

To let her soul be known

But every day, not a single sound escapes

The girl freezes up before

She can say even one thing

And all the girl needs to say

Is one simple thing:

"I love you"

Eyes, blind to my ghost

Your ears, to me, deafened

Your mind perceives not

The love letter I’ve spoken

The tomb, a cold chamber

Deep darkness about

I scream in the silence

Yet, you hear not my shout

Decay’s setting in

To the dust is returned

The body, ransomed

The ash, in an urn

Captive not to the curse

Yet my love; unrequit’

As you move through your life

Don’t you see my spirit?

A soul void of peace

You are prisoned and chained

“Arise, Lazarus!

Come forth from your grave”

The bathroom stall has been Mari's home and sole comfort ever since December 31st, 2000. It's December 31st today, the anniversary. It's been eighteen years since her best friend Adrian had been killed in a car crash.

She never got to admit to Adrian how she felt, and he could never tell her how he felt.

Today her feelings were bursting at the seams. She'd tried to eat breakfast but then vomited twice. How could she live on knowing her beloved Adrian was gone?

She'd made the decision a week ago, and she'd prepared all the necessary things she needed.

Mari Collins-Hemingsworth was going to commit suicide.

She couldn't hear Adrian cry behind her.

"Mari, my dear, don't do this," he whispers. "Don't leave this world, it's so beautiful." Mari couldn't hear him, she merely continues to set up the stool.

"My dearest, don't leave this world, you are loved, you are needed, you must move on. You must keep going, please." Tears rolling down her face, Mari stands on the stool and grabs the end of the rope. Her eyes close as she ties it around her neck.

"It is time for me to join you, Adrian, I'm sorry. I can't make it."

"Please, Mari, don't listen to those little voices in your head. You are loved. Don't die, please." As Mari prepares to kick down the stool, something stops her. She unties the rope and collapses to the floor. Adrian, crying, wraps his arms around her.

"I know you're here, Adrian. You'll always be here, I- thank you." She sobs and Adrian holds her in his arms.

"It's going to be okay, Mari. I'll always be here."

"Charlie!" Isabella called out as she entered her house, there was no response. "Charlie?" She put her bag and coat on the kitchen table and moved upstairs, from room to room calling his name. There was no response. She grew more and more frantic. The realisation of her abandonment crept up quickly on Isabella, when she had needed him most he had forsaken her. The only sound in her small one bed house was the icy wind whistling down the upstairs corridor, the soul of her home was deflated and grey. "Charlie!" She cried and still no response. She had lost everything in a matter of hours, her closest companion, her passion and curiosity for enchantment. If there had been anything left in her then her wails could have blown out the windows. She felt deflated, she felt the weight of her own mortality. "How could you leave me?" She puled incase by some stroke of fortune he was listening, and of course he was. Tears of devotion and heartbreak streamed down her cheeks and dripped into the lifeless palms of her hands. "Is this my punishment?" The torture of having her closest companion through the cumber of death wracked her. So she sat in the windowsill and felt the weight of her loneliness, staring out across the sleeping giant hills, unsure of what to do with herself now. For the first time in her life the escapism and fantasy of the occult was not there to make her more than herself, now she was just like everybody else.

On the other side of the curtain Charlie watched with his candid antipathy and his quiet despair, he had been there at the meeting, and he had heard every word. The Morrigan frightened him, as she did every spirit, he swam in the seas of her creation and thus was a slave to her whims. The phantom Queen had seen him there at the lake, she had looked him in the eye and caused his whole being to shudder with ice and electricity. And now Charlie could not reach Isabella but was still forced to watch her torture herself and learn how to hate him. Even worse was the way she would learn to live without him. Charlie moved to sit beside her on the window ledge, he placed his hands atop hers as best he could. Isabella startled as she felt the familiar shudder of a phantom touch.  

"Charlie?" She turned to see nobody there. It was maddening. She could not know what was real and what was just her grief stricken mind tormenting her. She looked at her hands, turning them over and analysing the lines and shining spots where her skin was still wet from tears. Isabella reached around her, trying to find any ghostly tremble in the air. Charlie moved to her, he placed his chest against her outstretched palms and she gasped when she felt the coolness of his dead heart. She knew it was him. Isabella followed the vibrations of his body until she was blindly cupping his face, then she found his hands. The sun setting across the valley caused a sudden gush of golden light to flood the stairway, then the light was gone.

Tip, tap, top.

“Hello?” I asked “It’s me, Tarence.” I continued. “Remeber me from Central High Middle School?”

I thought I was spectating her and asking her questions.

I drifted in Sara’s high school extra curricular class to remind her that I need to ask her if she has affection for me. I passed away from the earth about two years ago. I can never forget the time when I was walking with Sara on her rofftop townhouse in Manhattan when we were in seventh grade. The aroma of fresh linen congested the air after a vast rainstorm passed over the area. That night I was lead into peer presure to commit to injecting drugs into me by Carter. We were resting on the ledge of the townhouse when I began to vilzualize vibrant colors swirl around me. My eyes crossed my nose and they began to swell. My stomach had a keen, acute pain in the left side.

“Are you okay?” Sara asked me with a peturbed tone in her voice.

Don’t make her get worried.

”Yup, I more than fine, I’m great!” I responded.

Crash! This fatefull night I toppled off the ledge and rose to my death in heaven. We were the closest friends. My last breathes were spent with the love of my life in our most memorable friend spot. Nothing can break our relationship, but I felt I had more feelings for Sara. Tip, top, tlop! I countinue to tap her shoulder. The pigmentation and detail begins to vanish.

Wait! Whats happening? I can’t see anything! It’s blank and black. I can’t even hear anything!

I attempt to shift my arms and legs around me. My face begins to endure tears dripping down my cheaks.

Now I can never ask her!

Zoop!

My late father who owns the grave neghboring me was in spirit next to me while I was nudging Sara.

“Well Why did you drag me back here? I was going to “man-up” and ask Sara if she has feelings for me” I informed him.

“I didn’t want to see you undergo pain and sadness for something that is garenteed. She loves you!” he advised me.

i wish you could watch

the way my broken body crumbles

in front of you and down to your feet in worship

if only you could hear the way i cry out in devotion

disguised as rage but surely you'd run if you saw

my hollowed heart which still manages to shatter

every time your thoughts turn to me in sadness

or regret for lost time missed opportunities

love that didn't live long enough to become

everything that it could've been