Storage Space: A Collection of Contemporary Verse by Darren A. Stein - HTML preview

A Fear of Ghosts and Distance

We are both so scared of pain,
of hurt and disappointment;
We carry with us rooms of ghosts—
the memories of happenings we wish to bury deep inside.
We speak in codes, dancing around the edges of conversation—
a little symbolism here,
a little poetry, and the constant emotional and intellectual probing.

I thought I’d killed my past,
I thought I’d plucked it from my brain and sliced it from my night-sweat dreams.

But my past was stronger now it seems, those ghosts so strong and I so vulnerable that now I dread have lost my chance, have lost that opportunity—have lost you.

Will we always hide behind this mask of words, or will we liberate ourselves with honesty, a show of love—a kiss?

I fear that I will frighten you,
and stir your own beleaguered ghosts.
I fear to tend the status quo is better than to let you go, Thus hold that thought, though far away,
I too reside inside your heart,
And pray, that in this world—this horrid world— I’ve finally found someone to love,
someone with whom I wish to stay.