"Somnambulist*" by Hiram McDaniels

Note: This poem is for a good friend who is struggling with depression. 
*somnambulist: sleepwalker

It has been months since I last saw you

though we spoke the other day.

Twenty minutes it took you

to reply, one word,

to ignore

the article I thought you’d love.

The one about taking dinosaurs from hollow places

and other earthen secrets.

Perhaps I am the one being haunted

by the ghost of you,

though you couldn't muster the energy

to rattle any chains

or change the water pressure

or throw books off the shelf

or get out of bed today

or pick up the phone and give me a call.

Often now I suspect

you have been replaced

by some paler version of yourself.

A facsimile, sweating color until you rattle

like dead leaves

a phantom, wearing your clothes

and sleepwalking your halls.

There a space heater rattles through frozen days.

Would you melt away into nothing

if the sunbeams met you again?

Or would you blossom,

spring in your step,

shedding winter’s chill like a childhood blanket?

You know I still have mine.

I left it there one summer past,

and the you-that-was mailed it back to me

folded and softer and smelling of detergent.

Maybe I could leave more

objects, like breadcrumbs,

to lead you back to me.

But maybe now

your hands would pass through them, intangible

and you would forget.

I wish you were a poltergeist,

because at least violent spirits

have color to spare.

I would take the broken glass,

the writing on walls,

cold spots and harassment.

Anything but the void of you,

a colder apparition

carved with hollow spaces I can’t fill.