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The Phantom

Poem by Stella Snow

By Stella SnowPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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I am so glad you’re here with me

And though I can’t see you

Or touch you

I can hear you

And sometimes I can feel you

And together we are in my backwards world

Together we will win the battle of the ghosts i made up in my mind

And I know the battle is gruesome, long and ugly

And I know the land we fight upon is barren and cold

And I know the sky that lives above us is only white noise and a complex machine churning more stories and more battles for us to conquer but sometimes it looks like heaven.

I am so glad you are here with me.

You may not know me on the surface. Or anything about my life back home. but you know a deeper version of it without even realising. Perhaps the real me. Or the me behind the curtains. The me no one else sees.

You are whirling and playing in the pits I’ve pulled you in. And you play into my hands. You give me everything I need and some more. You are unpredictable and the most beautiful prediction I ever sewed together from pieces of worn cloth parting and tearing in my hands. I had to find a needle, I had to find the courage and the time. I had to create something new from something old and I had to involve another mind. If I didn’t, it would have only been a thought. And I have too many of those already.

And now you sit in the cold, on the phone to my phantom. And you speak so gently. And you give so generously. And worst of all, you believe me. You trust me. But know you are not talking to a liar. You are talking to a dream. You are keeping that dream alive and lit up like a lone lighthouse in the middle of an angry ocean.

I am so glad you’re here with me. Who knows where it was all going. Who knows what would have happened when I returned from the beach that day. Back to bleakness, greyness, darkness, hopeless.

You have made something bearable. I don’t know what yet. I might have some idea somewhere in the quiet and damp depths of my mind.

And I laugh about it sometimes. I laugh because you believe me. But it is not arrogance that tickles me, I laugh mostly because of relief. I know I don’t mean to insult your intelligence. I know you’re strong and clever. And I feared you would see through me. I still do.

I have merely involved you in a fantasy. But I know there is a lot more to it than that. Trust, friendship, love. And I am scared everyday of the person behind it all. I am ashamed of her. And I wonder how I could ever do what I’m doing and I wonder if I’m a psychopath, a sociopath, a sicko. Perhaps I am all of those things.

But right now to me, the only thing that matters is your voice on the other end of the phone. The care, the love and the pain. I know now that the truth does indeed hurt but lies are a pain not even the best poet can explain.

Right now to me, the only thing that matters is your voice on the other end of the phone. Right now it is all I need. I question myself every second. I wonder if I’m doing more harm to myself than I am to you because it’s all my mind can see. It consumes me. To be faced with this part of myself that could crumble and burn and float away when it turns to ash any second. I have thought about destroying our kingdom. I have thought about setting you free.

But right now to me, the only thing that matters is your voice on the other end of the phone.

surreal poetry
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