on the ghosts that broke my heart

Opened up his little heart,

unlocked the lock that kept it dark

and read a written warning saying,

“I’m still mourning over ghosts […]

that broke my heart before I met you”

-Laura Marling

1. At our last session, I asked my therapist if we could begin the daunting process of untangling my relational traumas. Initially I wanted to see someone who was experienced with c-PTSD— but adult life comes with chaos and we’ve veered off the trail a tad. However, the ingress of the spookiest season means I’ve come to examine things I fear most. To be fair, my life’s orbited around everything that scares me.

2. My high school’s Advanced Writing class spurned the creation of my very first collection: The Things You Fear the Most. In hindsight, giving my opps an opportunity to destroy me probably wasn’t the best idea. But I was lucky enough that the class only had six other students who read my work. All talented in their own right: An award-winning slam poet, the future couple with simmering tension and a great love for science fiction, amongst others. I was just the fat girl who forgot she took her medication, then wolfed down an entire McDonald’s breakfast (complete with a Vanilla Iced Coffee) and tweaked for two hours while trying to stay still and write. The word that stays with me from that era: Raw. (I still can’t discern if that’s meant to be criticism or a compliment.)

3. As an adult, I choose to believe my peers admired my courage to lay my vulnerabilities out on display. But perhaps they meant the alternative Merriam-Webster definition: “not being in polished, finished or processed form.” They weren’t wrong either way. How could I not write with such conviction when my reality felt stranger than fiction? We are all raw at some point, at most points. I am unfinished, unrefined, and unprocessed. You will take me as I am or not at all.

4. The Ghost of my First Love made an appearance in my dreams again. The first time I wrote about us, about another dream, was the key feature in The Things You Fear the Most. Instead of a whisper on the wind while waiting outside a manatee exhibit, it felt simpler in scope: Acknowledgment of harm and damage done to one another. I wonder if she realises how much hurt she caused, in her own fantasies and mind. It’s been 18 years since she first entered my lore as my First Love and I will never forgive her for taking away what could have been a genuine, loving experience from me. Sometimes I yearn to investigate the inner workings of her mind, to confront her with the evidence and to earn redemption from all the hurt. That seems like wishful thinking now, almost 20 years later.

5. She still haunts me.

6. Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs is the most powerful song spell I’ve ever heard. I put it on loop whenever I get my heart broken. In the last six months, Stevie’s curse has received a lot of airtime. The 1997 live version, where Nicks and Buckingham face off and never break eye contact, in particular. Every femme over a certain age that listens to this song automatically adds it to their breakup canon. This song finds the listener when they need it the most.

7. My greatest desire, as stated through Silver Springs’ lyrics: “I’ll follow you down til the sound of my voice it haunts you. / You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loved you.” My greatest heartbreaks, in this sense, have also been my greatest teachers. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you have great expectations.

8. Sometimes I have no expectations.

9. That’s why they haunt me.

10. When I start seeing someone, it takes approximately four months for me to determine how they’ll fit into my life as it stands. Sometimes this process takes longer, but I can sense what role someone can fulfill within that time frame.

11. On our first meeting, my ex’s close friend departed by informing me that, “[They] were in love with you after the first date. I’ve never seen [them] look so giddy.” It surprised me because for the entirety of our relationship, I felt like the one who initiated discussions on love and emotions. I told my ex I loved them over text, and then started peppering it into our in-person goodbyes, despite how frightened I was because they didn’t say it back. When we made it home, I teased my then-partner relentlessly. “Oh, so you were in love with me after the first date and you made me wait for nine months to say it to my face?”

12. “Yes. It took me a long time to say it, but at least you know I mean it when I say I love you. I think I felt it around three months, and kept debating and asking people if I should say it after you said it. I told my therapist, and asked her advice. I waited for so long because I wanted to be sure. Now you know, it’s real.”

13. The love we shared lasted for a little under a year and a half. It was not enough to salvage the eventual wreckage. But god, was it real.

14. I cannot grieve the ghouls that continue to hover because they’re never absent. They linger around for too long. No wonder why it comes and goes in waves. Grief is a form of loving relation, though one that doesn’t need reciprocation. The pain of losing someone you love hurts, but not as badly as losing yourself to love. That’s the worst type of pain I’ve ever felt.

15. I lay my pain and vulnerability bare for my crush, relaying the oddities and traumas through humour and semi-awkward anecdotes. I often lay out my red flags for suitors ahead of time so that there are no surprises (like the Radiohead song before it.) At this point in my life, I lug around three decades worth of baggage— only to realise that perhaps everyone else is just storing theirs at home, showing up with the bare minimum. I can’t help but show the scabs— I enjoy picking at my wounds so much they get infected and scar. Yes, this is a defense mechanism but it’s also realistic. Setting up a map for someone with whom I want to relate on a deeper level means I get to be their trail guide to the messiness that is me. When that means I have to show them the monsters that lie within, and the ghosts that continue to haunt me.

16. Like Carmen Maria Machado and countless others before me: Sometimes I’ll look back on the Dream House and realise it was Haunted the entire time.

17. Except I don’t live there. It lives within me.

18. I was the house the entire time.

19. Maybe that’s why the ghosts continue to haunt me.

20. But they were just the ghosts that broke my heart before I met you.

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This is a short diary/experimental piece based off things I’ve been experiencing and going through a lot of therapy and introspection.

Thanks for putting up with me during Spoopy Season! I love when you all interact with me and I’d love to get to know some of you more. Remember that this is an e-mail, so you can feel free to send a message back. ✨

Prompt: What are the ghosts that haunt you like? Describe or catalog them in detail. Whenever you find yourself stuck, examine and push further. (Please do this with some support if it triggers you!)