I am a half-formed notion,

a pin you think you’ve stepped on but cannot find,

a wanton breeze tending to your cheek.

You have forgotten me even as you walk into the room

you came to find me in. 

I see the way you scratch your nose when you are alone.

I sit in the back of the cupboard, reading ingredient lists

and crying into vitamins. 

I backpack between rooms

threaded to your shadow by a strand of your hair. 

Mine is still red — death does not revert you to factory settings. 

I am a hermit crab refusing to change its shell. 

I am the empty film in your camera, 

the defunct intention to capture a moment. 

I cannot touch my fingers to your hand,

instead I tug pathetically at your bedcovers,

paw at the lights to make them flicker. 

I do not know what you believe. 

I wish I knew how you thought of me, 

your smile a spiral shell upon my back. 

Sometimes there is a light. It comes from the fridge

but is darker, cooler. 

I have to hide away on those days, 

must not let it find me curled inside your jumpers. 

Haunting is like burning eggs and having to eat them. 

But better to be this non-thing

than to have you vanish from me,

to have lost you in the way 

I always feared I would.