All The Things We Ever Were

There are ghosts here. You can hear them in the walls, see glimpses of them as they turn corners, pass windows, walk up behind you and breathe just lightly on the back of your neck; you turn but they are gone, just shadows, just murmurings of air, just things that used to be.
So many of us passed through here. Some stayed a while, some less. You can look out of the windows and see trees that were here before us, and will last long after we have gone. You can see the sky which grows more yellowed as the years move on, the skyline that accrues like crystal, jagging the horizon.
We laughed and talked, we loved and played. We told each other stories in the dark. We read poems in the sunlight. We whispered true love stories. We made things up. We shared the stories and passed them around, and sometimes they came back to us.
We told ghost stories, because there are ghosts here, and love stories because there is love. We told poems because sometimes words get in the way, or are not enough; funny stories to stop ourselves from crying, and sad stories so we did not laugh.
We walked up and down the corridors, up and down the stairs. There is not a room here we did not visit, or pass through, or remain in awhile.
This is a horror story, and here is my monster; this is a romance, and here is my love; this is a science fiction story, a horror story, a cop story, a true story, this is a story I made. These are the words that make me, that I make.
Here is my heart; here is my fear; here is what I am thinking about, who I am thinking of, what I think, what I want.
Here are words. Here are souls and laughter, loves and fears. Here is blood. Here are late nights and early mornings, the scratch of the pen and the tap of the keyboard, the cross through, the scribble, and the backspace delete. Here are the right words in the right order, the grammar and syntax bending to will; here is everything all correct, and sometimes a little wrong. Here is the bon mot, which is never enough.
This is the place. It is our place, it is your place.
All the things we ever were.


Latest posts by Andrew Cheverton (see all)
- All The Things We Ever Were - 30/07/16
- And Half Across Again - 20/02/16
- On Montague Road - 25/12/15
- Cathode - 26/08/15
- Tangahl Unbowed, and the Water Boat Beneath His Notice - 13/07/15
There is one comment