I would so pay you back for this / inestimable loveliness if / only shimmering ghosts of utterances remembered

I

we drank pinot noir from mason jars and fancied ourselves capital-A artists with B-list notebooks full of eloquent fury.

and I think I stole those words, or more clearly I know I stole a turn of phrase, but I know not where or from whom, just an inarguable knowing that

what I say comes from where I’ve been and I’ve been with you.

and you didn’t stop speaking on my account.

and you said things like

i wish you could see what I see. Stars, man. Towards the lake, I can actually see stars.

I missed them.

II

And I would so pay you back for this inestimable loveliness if only shimmering ghosts of utterances remembered, announced their surnames:

an infinite procession of inspiration, what is said is always borrowed and forgotten, and remembered and said again.

all memories are ghost stories, not-quiteness strolling past a treehouse you built when you were ten. a place wrapped in wax paper

and without blemish no-longer-yours, dissonant and distant – we make our home here among these inconsistencies.

III

How often did I write your name, more accurately the words that spoke your name whispers of what-we-did (at night, til dawn, in cul-de-sacs & shadows)?

Writers and five-year-olds say all love stories are ghost stories; (every single memory a footnote with a dagger† , etc, et alia)

But that is no way for me to explain it.

a muse is a memory, a girl delegated to history when now is still a thing we still can speak. I know, now, that I have always looked back over my shoulder for you, but you always skipped ahead.

your ghost is my ghost town, and I rebirth it with these borrowed words:

I want my voice to crack at the memory of our stars. I missed them.