Ex-Factor
Kitt
thecrusader83@aol.com

You’re an uninvited guest in my head.

You’re working your way through it right now, freeing all the old thoughts I locked away. You know your way around too well. I don’t have the will to stop you either, or the heart—all I do is look and I see you as you were then, at sixteen. A turn of your head and the ghosts shirk their chains; one glance and everything comes crying back.

You and your friends were generous earlier, returning that sphere. I hadn’t really expected it. But you were another surprise altogether, standing apart from the other two, dressed in black leather. (It suits you well.) At that time you were in the shadows, so I almost thought I was seeing things.

But then I saw the eyes I know so well. You were no illusion.

I can’t forget them. I looked into them so often years ago. They remind me of hot coals, the way they used to light up—red, like fire, like the sky right now, like blood. A warm color…most of the time.

Other times it’s so cold, it burns. Back in that cave I was just trying to be subtle. I know the past is probably as much a thorn in your side as it is in mine, but I wanted to let you know that I remember you.

I remember us, but maybe you think forgetting is better.

I realize now that the two-year absence must’ve cut you deep. I want to apologize, but everything that happened wasn’t my fault.

But I must’ve done something wrong, because now you won’t leave me alone inside. The sun’s setting and I have so much to do, but you’re still lingering in the back of my mind, dancing in my memory.