Ghost

He has been haunting my dreaming of late. Nightmarish visions of the man I met at a tender age, of the man who shared my life for over a decade, of the man I promised to marry, of the man I loved, of the man I renounced.

In my waking hours, the spectre of our relationship, the moments, images, snapshots of a time together since past, flash before my eyes, colouring my day, forcing me back to memories sweet yet hurtful and numbing. In my mind’s eye, I see our tiny flat by the sea, the laughter, the music, the dancing, the fucking. I see our reunion years down the track after our separation, both a little worldlier, both humbled and seasoned by experience and heartbreak and age. I see the two versions of our selves and the palpable attraction that coursed between us, the unfathomable chemistry that crazed mind and flesh alike.

And in the pit of my stomach, I feel, at a strange remove, the sexual rejection, the withdrawal of affection, the emotional cruelty, the arguments, the silence, the recriminations, the fear and alienation and eventual loathing. On days such as this, I recall the way he would point out my flaws just as my lips would brush against that soft spot on his neck and my hands worked their way down from his shoulders to his chest to his hips. It had the desired effect, his criticism. Red-faced and wounded, I would leave him be. As he rolled over and fell instantly into sleep, I would lay back, my sex and tears pounding and hot, and consider how I could possibly transform myself into the image of perfection he so obviously longed for and required.

I have come to realise these exchanges were just as much about him as they were about me. They were called up to diffuse my voracious sexual appetite, to reign in the fluid and varied nature of my passion, to assuage the guilt of his infidelities, to temper the frustration and anguish of his own insecurities. They were strategically mobilised just as I was coming into myself and just as he was feeling lost and out to sea.

The pen and page have, for the most part, resisted him. There is but a mere whiff of him here. The words have not cared for his presence; they have not cared to bring him back to (my) life or the site of my rebirth. But my thoughts have turned to him once more, sparked by these dreams as well as conversations with friends and lovers new.

As I think back on him, I recognise he was a necessary chapter, an essential encounter, as without him, without our stunning and broken love affair, I would not be the woman I am today. I would not be the woman daring to embrace her carnal excesses, her fervour and abandon, her beautifully imperfect mind, body and soul. While there are days where his voice rings in my ears, where his whispers callously taunt, they are fewer and far between.

For now I as look upon the woman reflected back at me, as I submerge myself in the eroticism of posing for the camera, as I watch my hands linger over the body of a lover as well as my own, as I immerse myself in the sensual and the primal, as I live and breathe and write and fuck and come, I see the beginnings of the woman I always longed to be.

In writing these words, in bringing him into the light, into the glow of the screen, my true hope is to set the last of him free, relegating his phantom to another sphere with understanding, with gratitude, with love.