A Ghost I Can’t Retrace

I watch you laughing, lit in gold,
with faces I will never meet;
their stories wrap around you, bold,
while mine lies folded, bittersweet.

I’ve known far more than I let show—
the quiet truths between your lines;
half-shaded words you let me know,
and all the rest you left behind.

It stings, but not in ways that last;
I bite my tongue and hold my ground;
the right to grieve is in the past,
and silence feels like safer sound.

I let you live where I can’t tread,
I choose the path where I’m unseen;
your smiles with them don’t strike me dead,
though once they might have split me clean.

You speak in shades, and I have learned
to read the light between the hue;
a page once shared can still be turned,
no matter what we thought we knew.

I keep my heart from asking why,
though echoes hum beneath my skin;
I’ve lost the claim to pry or cry,
to count the places you have been.

One day the fire will lose its flame,
its smoke will fade, its embers sleep;
you’ll brush past mention of my name,
the way one stirs a dream too deep.

The heart adjusts to letting go,
it finds new songs, new skies to roam;
and though I walk where you won’t go,
I’ve made that journey feel like home.

Perhaps one day the glow will fade,
and all our heat will turn to grey;
your face will pass me, half-portrayed,
as dusk recalls a summer day.

And I will smile to think we met,
two passing flames that touched the night;
not all that burns must breed regret,
not all that ends denies the light.

And I will keep a gentled face,
a half-lit shore, a closing sea;
you’ll be a ghost I can’t retrace,
as I will be in memory.